Mild days and sunny skies should linger through next week across the Bay Area, blanketing the region with pleasant winter days while extending the long statewide drought that has fueled this year’s catastrophic wildfires.
The Ramona Municipal Water District Board of Directors at its Nov. 10 meeting unanimously agreed to adopt the county’s defensible space for fire protection ordinance and accepted an auditing report that gives the district a favorable “unmodified” rating.
The Sacramento region is not prepared for a mega-flood and won’t be for nearly a decade, says Rick Johnson, executive director of the Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency.
The risk of large wildfires remains high in California, the National Interagency Fire Center says. Fall is the windy season, and dry fuels remain in much of the state.
Unseasonably warm weather is expected Wednesday and Thursday throughout San Diego County, then a cold front will arrive on Friday and bring a slight chance of rain in most of the region this weekend, according to the National Weather Service.
With more than 4 million acres burned this year – shattering a state record – California’s wildfire season came with a wicked ferocity, along with the climate-induced crises of crippling heatwaves and forced power outages.
It won’t take much, and the Pass Area as we know it may look dramatically different come wet weather this fall and winter. That’s according to public safety officials from various Riverside County agencies who are working to get the word out about the danger of “flood after fire.”
California has experienced record-breaking wildfires in 2020 with more than 4 million acres burned, increasing the risk of flash flooding along with mud and debris flows to communities and homes downslope of burn areas. The impacts caused by wildfires can be drastic when it comes to flood risk. In normal conditions, trees, shrubs, grass, and other protective groundcover allow rainfall to infiltrate into the soil.
Fear of contaminating precious local water sources is one way devastating wildfires continue to be felt in communities in Butte County, where the debris of burnt homes from recent fires sits near a watershed used by many in Northern California.
Meteorologist Emily Heller says the weather lately reminds her of what Northern California saw in 2018 just before the Camp Fire set the town of Paradise ablaze. For weeks, there was no rain, excessive heat, and dry winds.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
