August Forecast: What’s Next for a Hot, Dry US Summer?

Michael Hambrick has been putting out fires for over 25 years. But last month, the Dixie Fire flared up so fast in Plumas County, California, that firefighter Mr. Hambrick, who attacked by helicopter, was unable to save even his own home.

When it was evacuated, its porch was on fire and the windows shattered as 40-foot-high flames whipped through the sparsely populated mountain community of Indian Falls. The wildfire has reached a scale and intensity rarely seen this early in the season as climate change deepens a drought that has dried out the West.

“It was heartbreaking,” said Mr Hambrick, who had lost everything he had. He said he had installed three-foot fountains around his home as a preventative measure, but “the fire went in as if nothing had happened.”

Extreme weather has swept large swaths of the United States this summer, and at least four major heat waves filled the skies with so much dense smog that it turned the sun red in New York. And the heart of both wildfire and hurricane season is yet to come.

Here’s a look at what’s on and what to expect.

Wildfire season kicked off early with giant blazes in Oregon and California.

Great fires killed thousands of people. run away from their home The Fugitive Fire, which started last week in Northern California, Oregon, about a month ago, continues to burn. The third largest in the state since 1900.

Fires of this size usually do not spread in the West until August or September. But this year, after a rather dry winter in much of the West, the season began as early as April when fires broke out in the pine-covered mountains of northwest Arizona. forced hundreds of people to evacuate.

Authorities have issued dire warnings of the flames yet to come.

“No corner of our state is immune,” Oregon Governor Kate Brown recently said, blaming the “urgent and dangerous climate crisis.”

Despite the return of monsoons, the drought in the West is getting worse.

The monsoons in the southwestern deserts have produced a welcome shower of torrential rains. Parts of northern Arizona received several times more rain in July alone than during the entire 2020 monsoon season, which ran from June to September.

However, experts say this will not be enough to relieve drought conditions for long.

Ninety percent of western America under drought conditionsMost of California and the Southwest are experiencing “severe” or “extraordinary” droughts.

“This is a huge deficit that states must make up to get back to normal – if you want to call it that,” said David Lawrence, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. Many areas of the Southwest don’t get nearly a year’s worth of rainfall, he said.

meteorologists expect dry conditions to last through summerand even if autumn and winter take a break, they are likely to return.

Deadly heat waves shattered temperature records.

A heat wave swept the Pacific Northwest in late June, setting statewide temperature records. Many local records also fell as extreme temperatures scorched one region of the West after another.

Weather Service guesses Most of the western and central United States will continue to see above-average temperatures for at least the next few weeks.

Mr Lawrence said it was difficult to predict extreme heat waves more than a few days in advance. However, models that produce above-average temperatures show little signs of diminishing, and heat warnings have been issued. under the influence Over the weekend in much of the southeastern United States and parts of the Northwest.

Wildfire smoke creates dangerous air quality thousands of miles from the flames.

“Why is the sun red?” It was a trending term on search engines in mid-July, as smoke from multiple wildfires in the West contributed to the hazy, unhealthy air a continent away.

The air quality index, a measure developed by the Environmental Protection Agency, rose along the Midwest and East Coast, with numbers ranging from 130 to 160 in New York City—a range that could trigger adverse health effects. (The index ranges from 0 to 500, and readings above 100 are considered particularly unhealthy.)

Wildfire smoke from fires north of the Canadian border over the weekend in Minnesota made air quality so dangerous that meteorologists warned people to stay at home as much as possible. As wildfires burn more intensely, experts say smoke will continue to be a nationwide hazard.

Hurricane season started fast and brought dangerous flash floods.

Tropical Storm Elsa New York flooded Roads and metro stations at the beginning of July. It also put this year’s storm season ahead of 2020’s record pace: It was the earliest on record that the Atlantic basin had seen a fifth storm.

The first, Ana, established on May 23, marked the seventh consecutive year of a named storm that developed in the Atlantic before the official start of hurricane season on June 1. The last few weeks have been quiet, but it was the busiest episode. Hurricane season doesn’t usually begin until late August.

In their latest estimate, scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 13 to 20 named storms There will be major hurricanes this year, three to five of which are Category 3 or higher.

But experts are optimistic that cooler sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic will make this hurricane season less intense than in 2020, when meteorologists have exhausted the alphabet for the second time and there are lots of storms. Switched to using Greek letters.