Wednesday October 9th… Dear Diary. The main purpose of this ongoing blog will be to track United States extreme or record temperatures related to climate change. Any reports I see of ETs will be listed below the main topic of the day. I’ll refer to extreme or record temperatures as ETs (not extraterrestrials).😉
Dear Diary. I’m glad to see that much more typical weather for October has arrived across the CONUS. In fact, the climate is still not so warm that occasionally we see below average, near record cold events take place. One is an early winter storm dubbed Aubrey by The Weather Channel occurring in the Northwest and northern Plains areas. Unfortunately there is a downside to this event. Synoptically this means that cold high pressure will build into the Great Basin, which already has been producing dry, easterly winds across California raising the threat for life threatening wildfires on a large scale. Here is the pressure pattern, which looks very ominous, for Thursday morning:
October is usually the height of the fire weather season across California, but as we have seen this decade, firefighters and people have to be wary year round across the state due to climate change. This year has been much more typical of traditional years, though, since California had drought relief last spring and winter, and 2019 has not been nearly as torrid as 2018 in the West. Climatologically, October is when some of the strongest Santa Anna and other easterly winds blow combined with the driest part of the year interacting with mid-fall heat. Still, the 2019 weather pattern has allowed vegetation to grow across most of California, then dry in above average summer heat, so the stage is set for more conflagrations. National Weather Service advisories for high winds and fire our out for much of California today:
Electric companies are shutting off power to prevent any fires from sparks. I sincerely hope that by doing so the situation helps more than cutting off electricity hurts, such as in nursing homes and hospitals:
Here are more notes from the San Francisco and Los Angeles NWS offices:
We are all crossing our fingers that this “typical” fire situation won’t cause something like another Paradise or Carr conflagration. Spotty fires, as indicated, have already broken out across the state. I’ll let my readers know if we do see bad fires the next several days, and I may add more information and news concerning this situation on today’s post.
Here is more climate and weather news from Wednesday:
(As usual, this will be a fluid post in which more information gets added during the day as it crosses my radar, crediting all who have put it on-line. Items will be archived on this site for posterity. In most instances click on the pictures of each tweet to see each article.)
Here are some ETs from Canada:
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Guy Walton- “The Climate Guy”