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! 

Fires Still Rage; Most Of Medford Spared, But Not Other Towns

When I was on this blog thingy yesterday morning, it looked like an Oregon city was about to be consumed by another wildfire - another major tragic fire story perhaps.  Most of the city had been evacuated.  

A very hazy sunset over St. Albans, last evening.
Most of the haze was created by smoke from
wildfires out west that had drifted across
the length of the United States

I suppose the good news this morning is that the city of Medford, Oregon, population about 82,000 still exists this morning, and people are going back home. Unfortunately that's not the case for towns near that southwestern Oregon city.

Firefighters saved almost all of Medford, but flames raced through nearby towns like Talent, population about 6,500 and Phoenix, where about 4,600 people lived. Much of both towns are now destroyed by fire. 

The fires rage on, although a temporary change in the weather pattern along the West Coast will probably make all those fires currently burning a little less explosive and erratic over the next few days.

Getting ahead of the fires amid a continuing drought and inevitable heat waves and wind storms in the coming weeks is going to be next to impossible.  At least 96 major wildfires  are burning over 5,400 square miles of land, according the National Interagency Fire Center. Half of those fires are in California, Oregon and Washington. 

Four of California's five largest wildfires in the state's history have started within the past month.  

In places in the West not on fire, vast areas, including cities like San Francisco, sat under an otherworldly, dark orange pall as the wildfire smoke smothered the atmosphere. 

On the other side of the mountains the strange, extreme shot of frigid air for this time of year is stunning people.  Places like Denver and Rapid City, South Dakota went from 100 degrees to snow within two days.  The high temperature in Amarillo, Texas yesterday was 42 degrees, which was two degrees colder than the record low for the date. 

The media attention weather disasters will likely wane a bit this week as the fires tame down. Meanwhile, there's more trouble on the horizon, as there always seems to be. The National Hurricane Center is watching seven possible tropical storm or hurricane threats.

There's no immediate threat to the United States from any of these systems and at least some of these storms will miss the U.S.But just the fact that the NHC has seven balls in the air right now is really something. 

As the Associated Press points out, this year has had more than its share of weather extremes around the globe. Mostly hot, some pockets of incredible cold, along with big floods, big droughts and big wind storms.  

As AP reports:

"Freak natural disasters - most with what scientists say likely have a climate change connection - seem to be everywhere in the crazy year 2020. but experts say we'll probably look back and say those were the good old days, when disasters weren't so wild. 

'I strongly believe we're going to look back in 0 years, certainly 20 and definitely 50 and say, Wow, 2020 was a crazy year but I miss it,'' said Colorado University environmental sciences chief Waleed Abdalati."

If anything, this year's spate of weather disasters and extremes are perhaps worse than climate models had predicted a couple decades ago. 

As CBS meteorologist Jeff Berardelli reports:

"'This is yet another example of where uncertainty is not our friend, says Michael Mann, distinguished professor of atmospheric science at Penn State. 'As we learn more, we are finding that many climate change impacts, including these sorts of extreme weather events, are playing out faster and with greater magnitude than our models predicted.'"

Far away from the disaster zone in the West, we can sadly see the effects of all this way here in Vermont.  It's been quite hazy here for the past few days.  I can't even see the Adirondacks from my house in St. Albans, Vermont this morning, it's so hazy. Those mountains are barely 20 miles away. Usually I have a grand view of that New York landscape. 

We Vermonters have been enjoying a spell of "boring" weather. Nothing too out of whack. But that hazy, smoky air out there is a reminder that we are all vulnerable to climate change. Avoiding a weather disaster these days seems to be nothing more than luck. 

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:

Western Heat And Fires Worsen Amid Colorado/Wyoming Snow Worries

 The heat wave in the western United States worsened Sunday as did the wildfire situation, and the situation looks absolutely horrible for the next few days.  

This wildfire, one of many burning
in California, was started by a
gender reveal party. Sigh. 

Meanwhile, heat and smoke-cloaked Colorado continued to prepare for a winter storm.

The above two sentences, put together, were definitely not on my bingo card for this year. But it is the hideous year 2020, so you know whatever happens will be both strange and bad.

California is burning.  The Associated Press, via the Weather Channel, reports that 12,500 firefighters were battling 22 major fires in the state. Given the weather forecasts, most of these fires will spread, and new ones will start in the coming days.

More than 200 people trapped Saturday and Sunday by fire near a California lake were rescued, but 20 of them were injured. Some severely. 

California has already broken its record for most acreage burned by wildfires in a single year.  The fires continue to burn, and it really is just near the start of California's wildfire season. 

Some of the worst fire conditions today and tomorrow are where you'd least expect it - namely the area around Portland, Oregon and the coastal mountain ranges in northwestern Oregon and southwestern Washington.

This area, notoriously soggy in the winter, is bone dry. Today and tomorrow, strong east winds from the dry interior will lower the humidity to below 15 percent. Winds will gust to 60 mph in these mountains, and 45 mph in the Portland and Vancouver, Washington areas. 

A meteorologist at the National Weather Service office in Portland, Oregon said on Facebook this is the most dangerous fire weather situation in this region  in at least 50 years.

This is the kind of fire weather that can sent walls of flames into populated areas, like what happened in Santa Rosa, California back in 2017.

Stupidity also is a factor in this, as it always seems to be.  One large wildfire in San Bernardino County, California was started by one of those colored pink or blue smoke contraptions at a gender reveal party.  

Amid all this, heat records are falling like crazy.  Temperatures reached 121 degrees in Woodland Hills, California, the hottest temperature on record for anywhere in Los Angeles County.  Chino, California also hit 121 degrees, the hottest temperature on record for anywhere west of the mountains in southern California, says the National Weather Service office in San Diego. 

It was 108 degrees Sunday in La Junta, Colorado, the hottest September temperature on record in that state.  In Boulder, it got up to 99 degrees Sunday, the hottest for so late in the season.  It might have gotten even warmer, but a plume of wildfire smoke blotted out the sun during the afternoon.

In Colorado, it's hot, the air is choking with wildfire smoke and a winter storm is bearing down on that region. Good lord! Some higher elevations could get a foot of snow once the cold air arrives. At lower elevations, Coloradans are bracing for power outages as wet snow is expected to collapse leafed out trees into power lines. 

It's going to be a mess out west all week.

VERMONT WEATHER ISSUES

As we've been noting, things aren't nearly as wild here in Vermont as they are out west, but there are some weather issues to worry about. 

In the Champlain Valley, winds were already cranking hard by 7:30 this morning, at least at my place in St. Albans, Vermont. (It had been relatively calm an hour earlier).

The Champlain Valley is experiencing a wind storm today, even though there's no actual storm around.

A strong air pressure gradient between a cold front to the west and strong high pressure to the east is causing the wind. It will be windy statewide today, but channeling effects between the Adirondacks and Green Mountains will make the Champlain Valley especially gusty. 

As noted yesterday, do NOT take your boat out onto the lake today. The winds, and waves that could reach up to eight feet high are making Lake Champlain far too dangerous. 

Low humidity and today's gusty winds will actually create a relatively high fire danger in Vermont today, especially in the Champlain Valley and southern Vermont.  Keep a close watch on those camp fires and barbecues, and postpone setting that brush pile alight for another day. 

Showers were trying to move in from the west this morning, but they will likely mostly or completely dry up before reaching Vermont. We'll just be left with a bunch of clouds. 

 

Weather Off The Rails Again: Huge Heat, Huge Fires, And A Winter Storm

I still can't get over the weather extremes coming up in Colorado over the next couple days. 

Here's a for instance:   

Graphic from CBS News shows the extreme
heat expected over the Southwest today.

This morning, Fort Collins, Colorado was simultaneously under an air quality alert for existing wildfires burning nearby, a red flag warning for the risk of new fires, and a winter storm watch for the expected snow on Tuesday.

The predicted high temperature in Fort Collins today is 97 degrees, and 90 degrees on Monday. By Monday morning at dawn, it is expected to be 30 degrees and snowing. 

Record highs are being blasted out in the Southwest like crazy.  

The National Weather Service office in Los Angeles was describing the heat there as "kiln-like."  At 3 a.m., the temperature was still above 100 degrees at Malibu Hill and San Marcos Pass, California. Burbank, California yesterday tied it's all time high temperature on record with 114 degrees. It was 122 degrees in Palm Springs. 

Phoenix, Arizona reported a record high of 115 degrees. The forecast high in Sacramento today is 110 degrees.

Predictably, with such heat, wildfires are also blossoming like crazy in the West.  One of the most dangerous, call the Creek Fire in California, trapped 63 campers on a lakeshore and injured many of them.  The California National Guard was finally able to airlift the campers out using Blackhawk helicopters, but a dozen people were injured by flames, at least two of them seriously, says KPIX in San Francisco. 

Temperatures will cool down a little bit in California later in the week, but Santa Ana winds in southern parts of the state are sure to spread more wildfires as the week goes on. 

VERMONT WEATHER ISSUES

While all hell is breaking loose out west, here in Vermont, at least for now, things are comparatively calm.

I was a little surprised by the strength of a weak weather system that touched off some showers and even some thunderstorms Friday night and especially Saturday.

The thought was any showers would be weak and isolated, but things got a little more rambunctious. Te weather was over-performing again. Thunder and lightning were not on my outdoor bingo card last evening, but that's what I got.  

Many places in Vermont got no rain or very little - these things were still pretty scattered. But some of us, especially in here in St. Alban got at least some measurable, welcome rain, around 0.25 inches between Friday evening and Saturday evening. Ground conditions are still dry, so we continue to need any rain we can get. 

Very, very little, if any more rain is coming until at least late Wednesday or Thursday. 

If you have Labor Day weekend plans, today is by far your best bet. It'll be cool (probably 67-73 degrees for most of us).  But it will be sunny, winds will be relatively light and all will be good. If you want to take that last boating trip on Lake Champlain do it today. Definitely DON'T do it tomorrow.

Here's why:

Yes, it will be sunny, with pleasant temperatures, but it will get awfully windy, especially on and near Lake Champlain.  Winds on the broad lake could gust as high as 50 mph, and lake waves will reach heights of four to seven feet. 

That's way too dangerous for small and even mid-sized boats. Stay at the marinas, please.

On land, winds in the Champlain Valley should gust to between 40 and 45 mph, so minor tree damage and isolated power outages are in the cards. 

This wind will largely be caused by a cold front stalling way to our west, and a building, warm extension of the Bermuda High moving westward toward us. We'll be in the squeeze play between the two, so it will get windy. 

The cold front causing that wintry weather out west will struggle to get here against that Bermuda High. It looks like it will finally limp through with some rain and thunderstorms mid and late week.  By the time it gets here, the air moving in won't even remotely be cold enough for snow. 

 Instead, it will probably bring pleasant, typical September like temperatures, though the weather could remain a bit unsettled behind that  cold front. 

Dangerous California Heat To Break Record; Worsen Fires

 Yesterday I talked about snow.  Today, I'll get into the intense heat in California.  

While the Front Range of the Rockies brace for that snow, an intense heat wave is building on the West Coast.  

Huge areas of the Southwest
are under excessive heat
warnings (in magenta)

Excessive heat warnings are flying across almost all of California except the higher elevations in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Some cities could see all time record highs broken. 

Some forecasted high temperatures in California over the coming days are ridiculous. Maybe 110 in Los Angeles and Sacramento.  Perhaps 120 degrees in Palm Springs. 

California Gov. Gavin Newsom as declared a state of emergency over the heat risks and associated chances of power black outs 

This is a pretty dangerous situation in the nation's most populous state for lots of reasons.  Excessive heat, especially of this magnitude, is always risky for people who have underlying health issues or people who do too much outdoors. 

This is especially true this time, because smoke and haze from ongoing wildfires just makes the hot air even harder to breathe

People will perhaps tend to crowd more at beaches, or worse, inside air conditioned buildings.  Too many people being too close to one another could make the corona virus pandemic worse.

Electric demand for air conditioning in the heat could cause rolling those power black outs I mentioned which actually would shut off the air conditioning and make the heat worse indoors. 

The biggest threat, of course, is fire. The heat and drought conditions could spread existing fires, and new ones could grow explosively.

In southern California, the hot dome of air and the cold, snowy air mass in the Rockies could team up to create an especially worrisome situation going into next week. 

The two air masses will create a zone of strong east winds coming off the deserts.  The air from the southern Rockies would start off cold, but would warm up and dry out dramatically as it heads down the slopes of the mountains well east of Los Angeles and San Diego. 

The result is a potential worse case scenario of extreme heat, incredibly low humidity, and super strong winds ripping through the canyons and scrubland and passes toward the sprawling Los Angeles basin. 

The worry is fires would break out, and the weather conditions would make the flames unstoppable as they sweep into populated areas. This scenario is not guaranteed, but it is a real risk that emergency managers are very worried about.

This is not a good weekend to be in California, that's for sure.  I for one, am counting my blessings over an anticipated very pleasant and comfortable Labor Day weekend here in Vermont.