"Dry Lightning" Sets Much Of The West On Fire

Much of the tiny town of Chinese Camp, California
was destroyed by a wildfire caused by a barrage
of "dry lightning" this wee. The town was 
a historic Gold Rush hamlet with many
Chinese immigrants. Pictured is one of
the destroyed historic buildings there. 

Lightning strikes this week greatly added to the already growing list of western wildfires, especially in California. 

In just one 24 hour period earlier this week, nearly 17,000 lightning strikes were recorded in California. Many of those were "dry lightning" which is lightning in storms that produce little or no rain. 

These are especially dangerous in the West, as it's the driest time of the year out there. 

Vegetation has been cooking in the summer sunshine in a season that almost never brings much rain. So, inevitably, a bunch of new wildfires started with the lightning. 

As of today, many continued to burn. 

The worst of it might have been a broad area near the San Francisco Bay area early Tuesday morning. 

Per USA Today:

"Between  midnight and 5:30 a.m. local time, nearly 4,800 lightning strikes were recorded, including in-cloud and cloud to ground lightning.  Lightning data shared by the National Weather Service showed that the lightning strikes were concentrated in areas between the inland East Bay and Central Valley." 

Not much rain accompanied the Bay Area thunderstorms.  The National Weather Service office in the Bay Area reported numerous fire starts. So far, the new fires have not consumed much acreage. 

Another lightning hotspot on Tuesday was in the central and southern Sierra Nevada foothills.  Daniel Swain, a University of California Los Angeles climate scientist, said at around noon local time that there were dozens of new lightning ignitions already reported mostly in the foothills with many more coming in by the minute. 

These new fires were in addition to several fires that had been burning for several days. Many of these fires were spreading amid hot, dry weather. 

The fires have already created some serious losses. As the Washington Post reports: 

"Several parts of Tuolumne County, including the town of Chinese Camp, were ordered to evacuate on Tuesday. Video footage shared by KCRA 3 News, a Sacramento broadcaster, showed destroyed homes and downed power lines in the town, a historic mining settlement once home to thousands of Chinese immigrants during the Gold Rush." 

The fact there are already so many new fires, in addition to the pre-existing ones, makes it hard for firefighters to figure out which blazes to target, since they can't get to them all. That increases the chances that any of the fires could really get out of hand and race through a town or neighborhood when the winds pick up. 

To give you an idea how many fires are overwhelming responders, there's this:  The initial firefighters responding to a blaze usually give a particular wildfire a name based on things like nearby landmarks. So you get things like the Gifford Fire now burning in California, and the Dragon Bravo fire, which burned 106 buildings on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon in early July and is still burning

So many lightning-started blazes cropped up Tuesday that CalFire just called the collection of blazes the TCU September Lightning Complex and are given individual new fires numbers, like the 6-5 Fire and the 2-7 Fire.  There's no time to come up with names. 

It also doesn't help that the weather pattern is keeping much of California and the Pacific Northwest unusually warm this week, and mostly dry. In the far northwestern part of California, vegetation is at near record dry levels for this time of year.

Several wildfires are also raging in British Columbia, Canada amid unprecedented September heat.  Ashcroft, British Columbia hit 105.4 degrees Fahrenheit Wednesday, the hottest September temperature on record for the entire nation of Canada. 

More dry lighting is going on today in parts of British Columbia, Oregon and Washington today and tomorrow, so there might be even more blazes to add to the long list of 'em currently burning. 

Meanwhile, the fires are producing widespread air quality alerts in large parts of Washington, Oregon, Idahos, Wyoming and western Montana.

It's starting to affect us here in Vermont again. I noticed a little smoke aloft today, after going at least two weeks with very little smoke in the air around here. 

Fires still burning in Canada, along with the growing number of fires in the western United States will keep spreading smoke across much of the nation, probably for the next several weeks. 

Deadly Oregon Storm Another Deadly Instance Of Winds/Ice And Tree Destruction

A severe wind storm, then an ice storm, socked Oregon
last week, causing a total of 10 deaths and
causing widespread damage. 

 While we were paying attention to all the fallen trees, power outages and property damage in the big Vermont wind storms earlier this month, a somewhat similar, larger scale problem was happening in Oregon.   

An ice storm struck parts of the Portland, Oregon area Wednesday, killing three people and toppling scores of trees and power lines.  

The three people died when a power line fell on an SUV.  The occupants tried to get out of the vehicle and were electrocuted. Note: If a power line ever falls on your car stay inside until emergency responders tell you it is safe to get out. 

The ice storm deposited ice up to one inch thick, causing numerous other power lines and trees to break. The storm made driving and even walking all but impossible. 

The three ice storm deaths added more tragedy to the seven Oregon deaths blamed on severe windstorms in the days before the freezing rain.   One woman died when trees, transformers and electrical wires fell on an RV, sparking a fire from which a woman could not escape.

Another death was caused by a tree that crashed through the second floor of a home, killing a man inside.

Tree service workers in the Portland area said they had never seen so many downed trees on houses, never mind the ones that just fell across streets, power lines and back yards. 

According to a Monday report on Oregon Public Radio:

"Lisa Tadewaldt, an arborist with Urban Forest Pro in Portland, told OPB that her business has been flooded with calls from people who had trees crash into their homes. It could be days before some trees are removed. 

'The amount of trees on houses, it's the most it's ever been,' Tadewaldt said, 'I don't know what the insurance claim numbers are going to be, but they're going to be high. It's going to be insane.'"

Fallen trees were also blocking roads, preventing police, rescue and fire personnel from reaching emergencies. 

While rescue crews were dealing with a tree in Lake Oswego that fell on a house and killed a man, another tree smushed a car just two doors away.  At least 20 homes in that town were damaged by falling trees, says Oregon Public Radio. 

After those winds, the ice storm hit. 

Several storms have collectively caused widespread damage through most of the United States this month. Although there was an intense cold wave in the past week, most of the month across the Lower 48 has been warm, with frequent instances of high winds and heavy rains. 

The storminess has diminished somewhat, and temporarily, but there's more bad news on the horizon for Oregon and elsewhere.

Weather is finally improving in Oregon, though a series new, warmer storms are bringing rains to the region. The combination of rain and melting snow and ice could cause a little flooding, around Portland. Worse, an atmospheric river is expected to cause possibly more substantial flooding in southwestern Oregon and northern California over the next few days.

An ice storm is brewing in Arkansas.  Now that a hard freeze in eastern Texas and Louisiana is departing, the region is now bracing for heavy rain and flooding during the first half of the upcoming week. 

At least for this week, the storms are not expected to come near enough or be strong enough to cause damaging weather here in Vermont.  

 Videos:

News report of one Oregon neighborhood with very serious damage from downed trees. Click on this link or if you see image below, click on that: 

In hard-hit Lake Oswego, Oregon, one couple had to hack their way out of their house with an axe after fallen trees blocked their exit from their badly damaged home: Again, click on this link or if you see it click on the image below:

And here's video of an extreme ice storm this past week in Springfield, Oregon. Looks as bad as the Vermont ice storm of 1998 . Click on this link or view below

 

A Week To Remember: Wild Videos Of The Nation's Freezeout

The news has been full of reports and videos of the extreme weather we've had across the country this week.  I've been compiling some of the more compelling ones. 

The problems have been incredibly multi-faceted. 

 From ice in Oregon caving in trees and sometimes buildings, to impassable roads, to frozen pipes and burst water mains, it's been a week, for sure. 

For may, this was a once in a life time event, so people were encouraging to record the weather for posterity.  I'm sure some other wild videos will emerge. The ones here only start to give a picture to how bizarre a stormy week was. 

Now that the weather is finally starting to improve, it's a good time to share some of these. 

News report from Portland, Oregon from Saturday:

Massive tree down on a Portland, Oregon condo:

Some dude ice skating on a street in Texas. Yes, Texas:

You'd swear you're looking at North Dakota in this video, but it's an area around Oklahoma City on Sunday. At least there's no tornadoes!

Huge icy road pileup on Interstate 10 near El Paso, Texas Sunday

Some scenes from Fort Worth, Texas. Video looks like it could have been shot in Minneapolis:

Hundreds of Texas neighbors banded together to shovel a mile long path for a propane delivery for heat.

Propane truck wouldn't deliver until drive was cleared:

News report from Houston showing the havoc of busted pipes causing flooding in buildings:

Details on the viral photo of the icicle-laden ceiling fan in a Texas apartment building:

A torrent from broken pipes in this Dallas apartment:

This isn't just isolated stuff. Tons of flooded apartments, stranded people, and even (temporarily) frozen alligators:

 And here's a rather suspenseful video of some guys in Tennessee trying to rescue two pickup trucks stuck a roof that collapsed under the weight of freezing rain and snow. 

Historic Winter Storms Still Slamming Nation; Vermont To Get Involved

I have to show an updated National Weather Service map for
today. All that pink is winter storm warnings. I've never
seen such a large are of the nation under a winter storm
warning and I've never seen so much of the South
under a warning too.

Before I get into what we can now expect from the winter storms in Vermont, I have to say how amazed I am by the breadth of the winter weather in the nation. 

This is turning out to be one of the Top 10 most extreme winter weather events for the nation in my lifetime (58 years if you must know).  

I've never seen such a huge area covered by a winter storm warning, and how far south it goes.  This warning extends across the South from New Mexico to Alabama.  All of Oklahoma and Arkansas, and virtually all of Texas is under this warning. 

This warning extends northward to Ohio, and will soon go even further north to Maine 

Even Brownsville, on the far southern tip of Texas, is under a winter storm warning. There, normal temperatures are like Vermont in early June - low 70s for highs, low 50s for lows.  Instead, they're expecting freezing rain with temperatures around 32 degrees. 

Other normally balmy cities under weird winter storm warnings include Houston, Texas, Baton Rouge, Louisiana and Jackson, Mississippi. 

I'm also still stunned by how widespread damaging freezing rain has been, and how,  these destructive ice storms will expand and worsen. 

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown declared a state of emergency Saturday as ice - in some places more than a half inch thick, cut power to at least 270,000 people in the state, including in areas around Portland and Salem. 

Further north, Seattle had one of its top 10 biggest snowstorms Saturday with 11 inches. 

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott also declared a state of emergency due to the ice, and anticipated extreme, record cold.  Even in places that don't get much ice in Texas, there are concerns the electrical grid won't hold up to incredibly high demand as wind chills dive below zero in most of the state. 

A damaging ice storm also hit the area around Greensboro, North Carolina and much of Virginia Saturday. 

Ice storms that will hinder travel and damage trees and power lines will continue for the next few days from Texas, through the Tennessee and Ohio Valleys and up the Appalachian chain from North Carolina to New England. 

VERMONT IMPACTS

While we here in Vermont won't suffer the worst of the extremes out of this, this will still be a challenging week. We'll face snow, and very likely freezing rain and sleet, along with all the hazards that come with these winter storms. 

We'll have two main storms to deal with: One focused on Tuesday, the other on Thursday and Friday. 

Let's deal with the storm for Monday night and Tuesday first:  

The winter storm watch last night only extended as far north as Route 2 in Vermont, but now covers the whole state.  Latest forecasts put pretty much the entire state in the sweet spot for snow, though mixed precipitation is a risk in the south. 

The warning goes from Monday evening through Tuesday evening.  The heaviest precipitation will come down between the pre-dawn hours Monday and noon Tuesday. Snow will start Monday afternoon and its intensity will pick up later on at night. 

Tuesday morning, sleet and freezing rain could get as far north as Route 4, but should mostly stay further south than that. 

At this point, if mixed precipitation does come into southern Vermont, it looks like it will be more sleet than freezing rain. That's good, because sleet doesn't weigh down trees like freezing rain does.

There is the risk of damaging freezing rain with this first storm further south into the Catskills of New York and southern New England. This is especially a nasty risk because of what might happen with that next storm. 

That storm, on Thursday and Friday, will have a lot of moisture with it, but will track further west than Tuesday's system. 

That means it'll be a warmer storm, putting mixed precipitation in play for all of Vermont. 

The late week storm will probably start as a good burst of snow, then go over to a mix. Or even rain. That depends on a lot of factors. 

If the storm that will go off to our west tries to spin up a subsidiary storm in New England, that would lock the colder air over the region, and a lot of freezing rain could result. If there's already a lot of ice on trees from Tuesday's storm in southern and central New England, more freezing rain would be a disaster. 

That's just one of many scenarios that could play out with the weekend storm. We really don't yet know what types and how much stuff will come out of the sky with the storm at the end of the week. Just expect a storm. 

We'll get through Tuesday's storm, then try to figure out how the second system will screw up our lives. 

After that second storm, the overall weather pattern will start to untangle itself, so the extreme weather in the nation will wane and the South will warm up.  

We in Vermont will probably end up with calmer weather after this week's excitement as well. 

 

Winter Blasts Where They're Not Supposed To Happen

All those blues and purples you see on today's National
Weather Service home page are winter storm warnings, 
watches and advisories, and wind chill warnings and
advisories. By Sunday, these winter storms will
extend all the way down to the Texas Gulf Coast. 

 If you enjoy the harsh, stormy, frigid weather we're used to in a Vermont winter, it seems the best thing to do for the next few days is go to Portland, Oregon. Or Dallas. Or Houston. 

Seems odd for sure, but those areas are getting hammered by for what they all consider some really extreme winter weather. 

The big blob of frigid Arctic air that has been sitting over south-central Canada and the northern Plains of the United States has oozed westward, allowing the usual parade of storms coming off the Pacific Ocean to take on a very wintry character. 

Seattle, Washington and Portland, Oregon do get snow from time to time, but this round is something, especially for areas around Portland. Some areas near Portland could get up to an inch of ice accumulation from freezing rain. That's more than enough to bring down trees and power lines. 

In the Columbia River Gorge east of Portland, blizzard conditions are expected to develop tonight. In Portland itself, a half a foot of snow could come down.

Things will get even more dramatic as these storms from the Pacific dive down toward Texas and the Gulf Coast.

Remember yesterday I mentioned the jet stream is bending, taking a deep dive from the northern Plains toward Texas. This will bring the super cold up there down to Oklahoma and Texas.  Combined with the storms, things will get downright dangerous in the Lone Star State and Oklahoma, mostly because they're not use to weather more typical of Vermont than a southern state 

In most of Oklahoma, six to 12 inches of snow is expected between now and Monday. What's especially odd is the forecast temperatures during this.  During the storm, Oklahoma City is expecting a high temperature of 12 degrees with a low of 0. 

That's wicked cold for them, and it's unusually chilly even for a snowstorm up in our neck of the woods. By Monday morning, Oklahoma City temperatures should be down around 6 below, which is record territory for them.  Another snowstorm is possible around Wednesday. 

The Dallas-Fort Worth area has endured more winter horribleness than they want. That massive highway pileup Thursday in Fort Worth involving about 130 vehicles ended up killing six people and injuring 65 others  -  a terrible tragedy. 

After some more patchy freezing drizzle through Saturday a snowstorm will begin in earnest around Dallas later in the weekend, with near blizzard conditions expected. 

Even more remarkably, the winter conditions will go all the way to Houston, where an ice storm and some snow is a good bet toward Sunday and Monday.  Temperatures there by Monday morning will be around 15 degrees, which is, again, record cold.

This will be the most intense and longest lasting cold snap around Houston in at least 30 years, so people there will need to hunker down. 

There's going to be a LOT of damage in Texas as crops freeze and water pipes burst in countless homes and businesses. Remember, winter insulation in buildings isn't a thing there like it is here in Vermont. 

As we talked about yesterday, after the jet stream takes that big plunge toward Texas, it will then curve northward up the East Coast. 

That means the cold air in Texas won't be able to work its way to the Southeastern United States. For instance, Atlanta expects high temperatures in the fairly normal 50s for most of the upcoming week. 

That developing bend in the jet stream up the East Coast still seems destined to bring us more storminess here in Vermont.  Most of the storms have been heading off the coast well south of us, so it hasn't snowed much here lately, except on February 2.

It still remains to be seen whether a storm on Tuesday will come up close enough to give us a lot of snow, but it does seem the chances are better for that than previous storms.  This Tuesday storm could still miss northern Vermont.  Not sure yet, we'll have to wait and see for updated forecasts.

That bend in the jet steam could become so sharp that it takes the next good-sized storm from the eastern Gulf of Mexico inland instead of along the coast. If that happens, we in Vermont might end up with a bunch of ugly mixed precipitation or even some plain rain at the end of next week. There's still a roughly equal possibility that late week storm could stay all snow.  Again, we have to wait for updated forecasts. 

Weather Improved But Western Fires Still Rage; Death Toll Rising

It's not as windy as it was along the West Coast as it was earlier in the week, but wildfires rage on nonetheless, as they are too big to contain without at least days, if not weeks of work.

The death toll from the mega fires has reached 14, and that is sure to rise.  It has been unsafe to search areas where fires raced through over the past few days, and it seems not everybody made it out in time across parts of California, Oregon and Washington. The fires were just too intense and too fast for some. 

One of the western forest fires. Authorities are
only now beginning to search fire zones for
casualties. Also, conspiracy theorists spreading
rumors are making emergency workers'
jobs harder.

One example of the reach and extent of these fires is this stat from Oregon:  Half a million people have fled fires in that state. That's more than 10 percent of the state's population. 

The wildfire smoke continues to choke the West Coast and it's going to last.  Strong east winds pushed the smoke through big coastal or near coastal cities like San Francisco, Seattle and Portland.  The wind has shifted, and all that smoke that was pushed out into the air above the Pacific Ocean is now coming back on shore. 

The city of Portland has declared a state of emergency, since many of the city's firefighters have left to fight blazes elsewhere. The air is unhealthy due to the smoke, and new fires could break out in and around Portland since it's so dry there. 

A brief change in the weather pattern might bring a little rain to the Pacific Northwest next week, but then it will probably go back to warm and dry again. Any rain that does fall next week won't be enough to help much. 

In California, at least 2,000 structures, including homes, have been destroyed.  Oroville, population 19,000 is threatened.  At least one small town in the area, Berry Creek, population about 500, was pretty much destroyed. Evacuation zones sadly include part of the town of Paradise, which was largely wiped out by that now famous 2018 wildfire, the deadliest in California history  

Another dismaying thing about the fires is a sad reflection of our society at large:  There's lots of false rumors about the fires, which is normal, I guess. What's not normal is the huge amount of people who are buying these false narratives hook, line and sinker. 

PT Barnum allegedly always said there's a sucker born every minute. I just didn't realize there were that many suckers. 

For the record: Neither the left wing Antifa nor the right wing Proud Boys are setting fires in the West. The government is not using secret weapons to start fires in turn to sow panic.  

One popular Facebook page falsely states that federal agents are investigating fires as a "coordinated attack" by Antifa.  Law enforcement agencies stress this report is absolutely false. I'm not naming the publication because I don't want to call even more attention to them. 

There is one large fire in Oregon that was likely started by an arsonist, but police said the leads they are following all point away from any political motivation with this crime. 

According to USA Today:

The Douglas County Sheriff's Office posted a plea on its Facebook that community members stop spreading rumors about antifa.

'Rumor spread just like wildfire and now our 911 dispatchers and professional staff are being overrun with requests for information and inquiries on an UTRUE rumor that 6 Antifa members have been arrested for setting fires in DOUGLAS COUNTY, OREGON,' its post read. 'THIS IS NOT TRUE!'"

 Many of the fires are likely human caused, but were caused not by individuals with an agenda, but by stupid, careless people with their discarded cigarettes, abandoned camp fires and such. Many fires started from power lines downed by high winds. 

Latching on to false conspiracy theories takes resources away from authorities who need to focus on fighting the fires and preventing new ones. So stop it! 

How Much Does Climate Change Have To Do With Western Firestorms?

Last I checked earlier this morning, part of the city of Medford, Oregon, population 82,000 is on fire.

The entire city has been evacuated, or told to get ready to leave, and flames raced into town from nearby Ashland. 

Big railroad tressle burning
in Washington State. Photo
by Brian Stott

This is the latest big crisis out west as fires rage through forests, campgrounds and homes from Washington State all the way down to the Mexican border in southern California.

The weirdness continues elsewhere in the West, with unprecedented early season snows falling, as predicted, in places like Colorado, Wyoming and the Black Hills of South Dakota. 

One place that really had some weather whiplash was Rapid City, South Dakota, where it was 102 degrees on Saturday, followed just two days later by an inch of snow,   Now, there's a change in the weather!

Salt Lake City, Utah, experienced a huge downslope windstorm Tuesday, with gusts of 112 mph at the University of Utah and 70 mph at the city's airport. There's widespread damage there, as you might expect.  

I always say that it's impossible to tell to what extent climate change has to do with a particular weather event, but the western wildfires are completely in line with what the climate scientists have been warning us about. 

As always, though, if climate change did influence what is happening it's just seriously worsening some problems that likely would have been there anyway. Although chances are, without climate change, Medford, Oregon would not be on fire, though I'd guess there would still be fires burning in Oregon and other western states.

Believe it or not, typhoons in the western Pacific Ocean can prompt weather extremes in the western United States and this was the root cause of much of the havoc the West has seen in the past few days. 

When typhoons head north off or over the coasts of Japan and South Korea, they disrupt the jet stream so that a big ridge or northward bulge in the jet stream  sometimes forms along the West Coast of the United States.

This actually happens fairly often in September and October. It's part of the reason California is prone to wildfires in the autumn, and part of the reason you can get early season snows in the eastern Rockies.

However, this time, the ridge along the West Coast was much stronger than normal, and in fact might have been the strongest upper level ridge for this time of year. (Ridges tend to get weaker as we head further into autumn and winter).

Tuesday afternoon in Salem, Oregon
 beneath a pall of wildfire smoke

The strength of that ridge prompted those record high temperatures over the past several days on the West Coast.  It also caused a steeper plunge from the north on the High Plains and Front Range of the Rockies. 

Add to this that climate change can boost already high temperatures, a drought possibly made worse by climate change, erratic fire behavior, more and more people building houses in and near wilderness areas and other factors, and you get the mess the West has experienced this past week.

In this new climate world, we are unfortunately sure to have these wildfires slamming into towns and cities over and over again.  Santa Rosa, Paradise, and Medford are not the last towns that will be devastated like this.

Video: A small town near Medford, Oregon being destroyed by the wildfire last night:

Cataclysmic Western Fires Roar On Except Where It's Snowing (!!??!)

The fires roared on in the western United States on Labor Day as record heat, very strong winds, and in some areas, an approaching wintry cold front fanned the flames. 

Associated Press photo of a firefighter
battling one of many fires in California.

News report showed nighttime darkness in the early afternoon near some wildfires, because of thick smoke.  Residents and summer time campers fled through smoke and flames.

Up in eastern Washington State, a wildfire destroyed the small town of Malden, population about 200.  Several homes in Colfax, Washington also burned.

Massive dust storms in eastern Washington caused several crashes and closed highways, including parts of Interstate 90.  Before the wind picked up and the heat wave rolled in, it had been a virtually rainless summer.  Spokane, Washington has had just 0.07 inches of rain since July 1 - barely a sprinkle. 

Portland, Oregon was engulfed in smoke and dust as super dry east winds gusted to 50 mph around the city. 

As cataclysmic as Washington and Oregon was on Monday, it could get even worse today. Oregon especially is subject to extremely critical fire conditions, in which any fires that start would quickly become huge and erratic and pretty much impossible to stop until winds die down. 

Already, as of last night, some wildfires in Oregon were growing rapidly and showing "extreme fire behavior," which is never a good sign. 

Here in Vermont, we're not getting any extreme weather. But have you noticed that haziness in the sky over the past couple of days. That's largely smoke from the western fires. 

Parts of the Front Range of Colorado were choked in thick smoke and heat Monday, and now it is snowing. The snow is coming down hard in some places. The snow will suppress, but not extinguish a huge wildfire not far from Fort Collins, but at least it won't spread nearly as fast, and the smoke and ash are gone from cities along Colorado's Front Range.

The snow is a problem, of course, as already, snow laden, leafed out trees are starting to collapse. Gardens and crops are obviously ruined, and livestock is in danger from the cold and wet. 

So yeah, overall, just another rough day out west.  

Video of the experience of people trapped by the wildfire near a California lake:

A rather breathless news report from the Creek Fire in California: