Western USA drought worst in modern era

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Weatherman said:
WetEV said:
Weatherman said:
If anything, warmer water temperatures would enhance the summer monsoon by providing higher humidity and more moisture to the air. Mountain and desert areas of California will likely get more rainfall this summer than they would in a normal year. More rain and more cloud cover would mean less hot daytime highs, although nighttime lows would be warmer with the higher humidity.

It might be interesting to check your predictions at the end of summer... Want to provide a short list of locations to check?

Coastal areas? San Diego and Los Angeles

Mountains? Big Bear, Mammoth Lakes, South Lake Tahoe

If you want to pick a location out in the desert: Palmdale, Needles, Bishop

No further comment needed...

http://www.weather.com/storms/hurricane/news/southwest-flood-threat-july-2015-tropical-storm-hurricane-dolores
 
Weatherman said:
If anything, warmer water temperatures would enhance the summer monsoon by providing higher humidity and more moisture to the air.

Weatherman said:
No further comment needed...

http://www.weather.com/storms/hurricane/news/southwest-flood-threat-july-2015-tropical-storm-hurricane-dolores

Monsoon NEQ hurricane.

But yes, warmer water enhances hurricanes as well, so I'll agree you were correct, but not for the reasoning given.
 
Anyone who lives in north California should know how potentially hazardous the current fire situation is.

The one part of the story that hasn't been emphasized enough, is that the large fires burning in Trinity and Lake counties have occurred with low winds conditions, not what would normally be considered fire weather.

The very low moisture levels of both forest and Chaparral due to the drought mean that the current fires are behaving in an unprecedented fashion, for fires not fed by high winds.

Which suggests some pretty unpleasant possibilities for what could happen if the late-season winds arrive, as expected.

Full audio interview at the link.

Cal Fire Chief’s Nightmare Scenario


It comes down to this: the next couple of months.

Lately Northern California has captured national headlines with fast-moving blazes such the Rocky and Jerusalem Fires in the coast ranges about 100 miles north of San Francisco.

Unlike many epic fires in the California record, which were largely driven by wind, in the fires burning north of the Bay Area, “There really is no signifcant wind,” says Cal Fire Director Ken Pimlott. “It’s all being driven by the condition of the vegetation.”

Which is to say, not merely dry, but four-year-drought dry. Pimlott says Cal Fire measures the potential burn intensity of vegetation throughout the state, and is currently seeing “record levels” of that metric, known as the Energy Release Component.

“It’s just creating explosive growth rates,” he says.

The Jerusalem Fire went from 100 to 5,000 acres almost overnight. But the worst may be yet to come.

As summer gives way to fall, the winds typically shift and dry winds from the east sweep across California, turning an already sizzling fire season into a potential blast furnace...

In this interview with KQED, Pimlott talks about fire behavior, busting budgets, boots on the ground, and his confidence in the state’s ability to confront an ever-expanding fire season.

We start with what crews on the fire lines are saying about these aggressive, fast-moving fires in the north state:
http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/08/11/cal-fire-chiefs-nightmare-scenario/

More links, Wildfire blog, incident map, Fed and State incident directories:

http://wildfiretoday.com/

http://www.geomac.gov/viewer/viewer.shtml

http://inciweb.nwcg.gov/unit/3/

http://cdfdata.fire.ca.gov/incidents/incidents_current
 
Fingers crossed for El Nino moisture to arrive early. I got an up close look (lived just outside the evacuation zone, and drove up into it that night) at the Oakland Hills fire storm in '91, and really don't want to see something similar in the Bay Area (or elsewhere ftm) come September or October. The mushroom cloud of smoke I saw as I drove north from the Watsonville Air Show that afternoon was pretty scary, as my girlfriend was at home.
 
http://wildfiretoday.com/2015/08/12/national-wildfire-preparedness-level-raised-to-highest-level-in-two-years/

National wildfire preparedness level raised to highest level in two years

Posted on August 12, 2015 by Bill Gabbert

The National Multi-Agency Coordinating Group (NMAC) at the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise will increase the National Fire Preparedness Level (PL) to its highest point, PL-5, at 5:30 a.m. MDT on Thursday, August 13th. The PL ranges from one, indicating minimal activity, to five, which signals very high activity.

The raised preparedness level reflects a high degree of wildfire activity, a major commitment of fire resources, and the probability that severe conditions will continue for at least a few days.

“A significant amount of initial and extended attack and large fire activity has occurred over the past several days as a result of lightning storms that have intensified local and geographic response,” said Aitor Bidaburu, Chair of NMAC. “Given the continuing hot and dry weather and the increase in fire activity in the western U.S...

Wildfire activity has escalated in recent days after thunderstorms, many with little or no moisture, moved across parts of California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana, sparking hundreds of new fires...

The last time that the National Preparedness Level was raised to 5 was on August 20, 2013. The National Preparedness Level remained at 5 for 7 days until it was dropped to 4 on August 26, 2013. This is the fifth time that PL-5 has been reached in the last ten years.

During PL-5, further assistance from the military, beyond what is already in use, and international resources may be considered and requested, but no decisions have been made concerning those steps.

The weather forecast for the next few months, according to a news release today from NICC, predicts that most of the West will have above normal temperatures, below normal precipitation, and continuing drought in many areas into the fall.
 
A big contributed to forest fires in the west right now is the huge number of dead pine trees thanks to a combination of drought, warm winters and bark beetles.

I was in the Yosemite foothills earlier this summer and the number of dead pines compared to last year is drastically obvious.
 
More effects of the drought: http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2015/08/13/summer-skiing-mt-hood

0813_mt-hood-624x416.jpg
 
Fairly broad lecture by Oceanographer-Climatologist, Bill Patzert of Caltech's Jet Propulsion Lab.
Patzert has an entertaining style, even if some of the jokes are flat.

The gist of his talk: Yeah El Niño is shaping up to be a whopper but El Niños don't end droughts in Calif. Patzert believes that takes a "flip" in the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), which may be happening. Stay tuned for the Q&A to hear a question from our own tbleakne (hey tom!). Lots of historical perspective. Long, but I enjoyed the vid.

"Drought. Are we In or Out?"
 
sparky said:
Great video! Thanks!

A couple of quotes:

At around the 30-minute mark he spent some time talking about Lake Mead and at 32:45 he showed a pretty shocking graph showing the increase of the water usage from the Colorado River versus the flow volume of the Colorado watershed. The usage was increasing almost linearly and had CROSSED OVER the amount coming in around the year 2000! That cannot be good!

He makes a point to remind the audience that the history of California includes megadroughts:
Dr. Bill Patzert at 58.03 said:
And this has been the history of civilization...is, is that, you know, in the American West, we've seen great droughts - you can see it in tree rings - for centuries. In some of these PDO drought things,... In the thirteenth century we had a drought that lasted a hundred years...called the megadrought. Just hope we're not in one of those, ya know.
He gave a well-considered response to a question on desalinization plants:
Dr. Bill Patzert at 1:01:34 said:
So and let's just take this thing out to its logical conclusion. We're out of water, so if the cities in California are gonna have water, we're gonna have to build desal plants. At a billion dollars a pop. Well, I've calculated how many desal plants you would need to take care of all the urban water needs in California. The number is 200. Alright. So that's 200 billion dollars of bonds for the taxpayers. Alright. Figuring out, it would take at least 20 years before any of them got an environmental impact approval. Alright? And the other thing is that they are exceptionally energy-intensive. It takes a lot of power and energy to run those desal plants. And once you desal the water - you're at sea level - and where are all the customers? All the customers are uphill. Alright, so, uh, and uh, what we're tryin' to do here is, switch our economy from an oil and gas economy, and coal economy, to a renewable energy economy. Alright. And so there's a lot of negatives. On the other hand, you know, when we run out of water, you know, people get desperate and make bad decisions. Alright? We're definitely not all going to get in our Priuses and go to British Columbia. Alright? We're stuck here. We're gonna have to figure it out. You know?...And it's gonna be more than cutting back 25% on your home water usage. It's bigger than that.
Just a bit of a summary on the challenge of desal:
Dr. Bill Patzert said:
200 plants. You'd need a plant every four miles between Tijuana and the Oregon border.
 
RegGuheert said:
sparky said:
Great video! Thanks!

A couple of quotes:

At around the 30-minute mark he spent some time talking about Lake Mead and at 32:45 he showed a pretty shocking graph showing the increase of the water usage from the Colorado River versus the flow volume of the Colorado watershed. The usage was increasing almost linearly and had CROSSED OVER the amount coming in around the year 2000! That cannot be good! <snip>
For anyone interested in more detail, both of past mega-droughts in the area which caused civilizations to re-locate or disappear, as well as current and possible/likely future consequences, I recommend "A Great Aridness: Climate Change and the Future of the American Southwest", by William DeBuys. http://www.amazon.com/Great-Aridness-Climate-American-Southwest/dp/0199974675

More generally, there's also "When the Rivers Run Dry: Water--The Defining Crisis of the 21st Century," by Fred Pearce, which has a chapter or two on the southwest, as well as covering water shortages worldwide. http://www.amazon.com/When-Rivers-Run-Dry-Twenty-first/dp/0807085731
 
The death toll, and acreage burned in the western USA continues to increase:

Drought-Fueled Wildfires Burn 7 Million Acres in U.S.

Sap a forest of rain — say, for three or four years — toss in seemingly endless sunshine and high temperatures, and you’ve got just the right recipe for some catastrophic wildfires.

Such is the story playing out in the West, where, thanks in part to climate change, drought-fueled infernos are incinerating forests at a record pace from Alaska to California, claiming the lives of 13 firefighters, destroying more than 900 structures and requiring firefighting agencies to call in help from the U.S. Army and as far away as Australia and New Zealand.

Here’s the breakdown: As of Aug. 20, more than 41,300 wildfires have scorched more than 7.2 million acres in 2015, mostly in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. That’s nearly three times the 2.6 million acres that burned nationwide in 2014 and more land area than has burned in any other year over the last decade.

The blazes have consumed so much land this year because of the drought, fueled by record high temperatures during the warmest January-to-July period in history for the region...

The drought and high temperatures are stressing forests to the point where they can’t fend off the worst effects of wildfire, even in those forests that depend on occasional fires to survive...

The short-term outlook for wildfires in the West over the next few days calls for continued extreme dry, windy weather — a recipe for continued wildfire spread.

“We’re looking at the winds and the dry, lower humidities, dry weather,” Boehle said. Some areas of the Cascades that are burning could see winds gusting to 50 mph through Saturday, she said.

The bottom line, she said: “Not much improvement.”
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/wildfires-burn-7-million-acres-19363

In case you missed it, the Guardian's coverage of recent research connecting the present (and far more severe future) droughts to anthropogenic climate change:

Long-suffering California can blame drought on global warming, experts say

Latest report finds climate change intensified the drought in California from 2012 to 2014 and predicts ‘enhanced drought’ throughout 21st century


Global warming has increased the severity of the ongoing drought in California, as part of a larger trend of human-caused climate change intensifying dry weather spells, scientists said on Thursday.

Scientists predict that “enhanced drought” will continue in California throughout this century because global warming has “substantially increased” the likelihood of extreme droughts in the state.

Recent studies have looked at climate models to predict the future frequency of droughts while others have analyzed historical records to see the probability of drought. The paper published on Thursday in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, however, looks at how much of the current drought can be blamed on global warming.

Scientists looked at factors that could impact the drought, including temperature, rainfall, humidity, wind speed and other factors and found that climate change intensified the drought in California between 8% and 27% in the period from 2012 to 2014.

Park Williams, a climate scientist at Columbia University and the lead author of the paper, said he hoped the findings would motivate the state to continue thinking about its response to the drought with a long-term strategy.

“California, I believe, has a history of when droughts end, they have a history of discontinuing their efforts to improve resiliency to future drought because those efforts are costly in the short-term,” Williams said.

But this strategy is not sustainable, according to the study. “I hope that the measures that are under way now to improve resilience to droughts don’t end as soon as it gets wet again in a few years,” Williams said....

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced on Thursday that July was the hottest month in history since record-keeping began in 1880. This came a month after scientists announced that the first half of 2015 was the hottest recorded.

Jessica Blunden, a Noaa climate scientist, said that heat records like this were “getting to be a monthly thing”.
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/aug/20/california-drought-blame-global-warming

Contribution of anthropogenic warming to California drought during 2012–2014†

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2015GL064924/full
 
Thanks. Unfortunately, I don't need to read more news reports. Most of WA state (probably OR & ID also) has been covered in smoke, with air quality worse than China for nearly a month. What isn't burning is bone dry and primed for a rapid explosive fire. This weekend we expect a "storm" to blow in, which may just mean more lightning and wind. Not a good combination for late August.
 
Reddy said:
Thanks. Unfortunately, I don't need to read more news reports. Most of WA state (probably OR & ID also) has been covered in smoke, with air quality worse than China for nearly a month. What isn't burning is bone dry and primed for a rapid explosive fire...
For the last ~month, I've been starting my day with a look at the smoke reports:

Areas of Washington, Idaho, Oregon and Montana are in the center of the worst smoke being generated by local fires, as of 8:45 a.m. MDT. Air quality forecasts show unhealthy levels of smoke in all four states, with unhealthy advisories extending into Canada.
http://wildfiretoday.com/2015/08/26/smoke-map-aug-26-2015/

As you can see, the south wind has mostly blown the Trinity County fire smoke into the huge plume extending all the way from Hudson bay to Missouri.

So it's been fairly clear here, for the last few days. A week ago, after barely going outside for days, I was getting desperate for a walk, and headed east to Lassen Peak.

Even there, there was enough smoke to obscure the peak, in this photo taken from ~7-8 miles (?) away.

 
The weekend before last, we were getting lots of smoke from the Rocky and Jerusalem fires (due to north winds) in the Bay Area, but it's been mostly okay since then once the wind backed northwest and west. You can still see smoke some days, but can't smell it or feel it in your throat. Still ~two months to go, unless we get lucky with some early rain - c'mon, El Nino :!: It's shaping up to be a big one, but we can only hope it arrives early.
 
Will the smoke particles provide more condensation nuclei in the atmosphere, leading to a wetter winter?
 
The smoke and soot from the wildfires is darkening the snow and ice, that is for sure. Lower albedo means more rapid melting.
 
Nubo said:
Will the smoke particles provide more condensation nuclei in the atmosphere, leading to a wetter winter?
I doubt it. I believe you need BOTH higher humidity AND condensation nuclei to get more rain and/or snow. If the air is very dry, then there will not be more rain.
 
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