Monday September 28th… 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).😉
Main Topic: Explosive Wildfires Return To California As A Result Of Heat And Wind Episode Desdemona
Dear Diary. As feared last week, the weather pattern shifted in California on Sunday such that Diablo and Santa Ana winds became gusty, lowering relative humidity and fanning flames. Temperatures will rise in the state toward record levels today. Once again, this is a recipe for disaster for residents who have built in areas prone to occasional wildfires. Climate change is making the fires more frequent, and is starting to turn land more arid in the southwestern U.S. region.
My friend, Andrew Friedman of the Washington Post, has written a summary of big wildfires that exploded overnight. Here is his report:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/09/28/california-wildfires-santa-rosa-glass-fire/
California wildfires erupt in wine country, damaging Santa Rosa and prompting evacuations
Heat wave, dry winds fan flames and worsen what is already California’s biggest wildfire season on record.
(For a good Washington Post video on this fire situation hit the above link to see the entire article.)
A confluence of climate change, fire suppression and poor fuels management has led to one of the worst fire seasons on the West Coast in recent memory.
By Andrew Freedman September 28, 2020 at 8:56 a.m. PDT
Swiftly moving wildfires roared into parts of Santa Rosa, Calif., overnight and Monday morning, causing damage in the eastern parts of the community and sending thousands fleeing during hasty nighttime evacuations. The fires have erupted during yet another in a series of heat waves that have shattered records across the state since August, and dry offshore winds are pushing the flames to spread rapidly downwind.
Homes were engulfed in flames in the Skyhawk neighborhood in eastern Santa Rosa as the Shady Fire advanced into the community. That blaze began Sunday night in Napa County, near the Glass Fire that had begun early Sunday.
The Shady Fire jumped Highway 12 in Oakmont and forced a 5,000-person senior community to be evacuated by bus. Local news reports indicate the fire has engulfed some homes in that community. Evacuation orders (map) extended into the eastern periphery of Santa Rosa while an evacuation warning was in effect for the city itself. An evacuation warning is not the same as an order but puts residents on notice that an order could come at any time and advises that they be ready to flee.
Fires were burning Monday morning in Sonoma and Napa counties, raising fears of the devastation wrought by the Wine Country fires of 2017, when Santa Rosa was heavily damaged. In Napa County, the Glass Fire ignited Sunday and spread quickly as dry winds picked up. CalFire tweeted it had burned 11,000 acres as of Monday morning.
The Sacramento Bee reported the Chateau Boswell Winery was engulfed in flames in video recorded by Bee visual journalist Daniel Kim, on the Silverado Trail outside St. Helena. The Glass Mountain Inn also burned, the paper reported. Wineries had already been heavily impacted by the smoke from nearby blazes that is affecting their grapes, and other facilities had burned in previous fires this season.
It’s not just new blazes that Californians are dealing with Monday morning, either. The North Complex Fire in Butte County spread farther amid the more dangerous fire weather, prompting various forms of evacuation warnings along its western side, including places heavily impacted by the Camp Fire in 2018, which was California’s deadliest blaze. Paradise, Calif., which was nearly wiped out by that fire, was placed under an evacuation warning Sunday night.
The North Complex is already responsible for killing 15 during the last heat wave, which occurred in mid-September.
Fire weather forecast to be ‘critical’
California is locked into a weather pattern featuring repeated areas of strong high pressure, or heat domes, that deflect any storminess and lead to hot and dry conditions. The area of high pressure parked over the West right now is unusually strong for this time of year.
Downtown San Francisco was under a heat advisory Monday, with highs possibly reaching the low to mid-90s, and with inland areas topping 100. The forecast high in Los Angeles was 100 to 106, which was also under a heat advisory.
The wildfires that began during a heat wave in mid-August have burned a record expanse of more than 3.7 million acres and killed 26, according to Cal Fire. Five of the state’s top 20 largest fires have occurred in 2020, including the largest, known as the August Complex.
The ongoing heat and dry wind event is slated to last through the week, though the most dangerous period in wine country as well as other parts of Northern California looks to be through tonight, as dry winds combine with the high temperatures to create tinder-dry conditions.
Western wildfires: Blazes fueled by climate change engulf vast region in crisis
The periods of “critical” wildfire risks — the highest fire-threat category, are occurring through Monday.
Red flag warnings for high fire danger are posted across much of Northern California through 9 p.m. Monday, with the Sacramento Valley and North Bay mountains expected to see the strongest winds. Gusts between 25 and 40 mph will be common but may exceed that, at up to 65 mph, in some locations.
“Incredible ongoing fire weather conditions,” tweeted Nick Nauslar, a meteorologist with the National Interagency Fire Center, noting that winds were gusting to 56 mph in the ridge near Santa Rosa, with relative humidity levels of 11 to 14 percent.
In the Los Angeles area, red flag warnings are in effect through 5 p.m. local time Monday, with the worst conditions occurring in Ventura and Los Angeles counties as well as the Santa Clarita Valley. Winds up to 40 mph are expected, along with humidity levels dropping into the teens and single digits. These conditions could lead to “extreme fire behavior,” the Weather Service warned. In L.A. County, firefighters have been working to shore up containment zones around the Bobcat Fire.
The worst fire-fanning winds are predicted to subside by Tuesday, but hot, dry conditions conducive to fires are forecast to linger for much of this week over the West.
“Elevated fire weather conditions will continue across all areas,” the Weather Service office in Los Angeles wrote, regarding the forecast for Southern California.
California is only now getting into its traditional land-to-sea wind season, when it typically sees some of its worst wildfires.
Heat waves are more likely and intense because of human-caused global warming, and some case studies have shown certain extreme heat events would not have occurred without human-caused global warming.
Scientists say California’s 2020 fire season, and the severe blazes that have extended north to Oregon and Washington, have clear links to human-caused climate change. There has been an increase in acres burned in large fires across the West due to global warming, and projections call for the region to become even hotter and drier, making the region more susceptible to fire sieges like the one currently taking place. A study published in August shows California’s frequency of fall days with extreme fire-weather conditions has already more than doubled since the 1980s.
This is how we know climate change is making wildfires worse
Because of repeated heat waves and a lack of summer monsoon rain, Forest Service data shows Southern California mountains are at or near record-dry levels for this time of year.
Jason Samenow contributed to this report.21 Comments
Andrew Freedman edits and reports on extreme weather and climate science for the Capital Weather Gang. He has covered science, with a specialization in climate research and policy, for Axios, Mashable, Climate Central, E&E Daily and other publications. Follow
Today I will be listing items from California’s dire fire situation below. The most recent items, which I will be updating frequently, will be at the top of this list:
The “ET’s” from Desdemona are starting to get reported:
Here is more climate and weather news from Monday:
(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. The most noteworthy items will be listed first.)
Now here are some of today’s articles and notes on the horrid COVID-19 pandemic:
(If you like these posts and my work please contribute via the PayPal widget, which has recently been added to this site. Thanks in advance for any support.)
Guy Walton “The Climate Guy”