After an extended weekend of wildfires, part of an early fire season that has already seen a record 2 million acres burned and Death Valley-like temperatures smothering the San Fernando Valley, Californians would be right to wonder whether we are living in a hellscape. We are not, it’s safe to say. But we are living in the future that climate scientists have been trying to warn us about for years now.
New wildfires ravaged bone-dry California during a scorching Labor Day weekend that saw a dramatic airlift of more than 200 people trapped by flames and ended with the state’s largest utility turning off power to 172,000 customers to try to prevent its power lines and other equipment from sparking more fires.
As flames tore through California’s Santa Cruz Mountains, Craig Clements drove toward the fire in a specialized radar-equipped Ford pickup, watching the plume of smoke billowing from the forest.
Clements is a professor who leads San Jose State University’s Fire Weather Research Laboratory, and he chases wildfires to study their behavior.
In Northern California, crews labored Thursday to control megafires sparked by a rare barrage of lightning strikes.
Across the country, a Category 4 hurricane made landfall overnight in Louisiana, destroying buildings and toppling powerlines with unrelenting winds and rain.
The two dozen major fires burning across Northern California were sparked by more than 12,000 lightning strikes, a freak weather occurrence that turned what had been a relatively mild fire season into a devastating catastrophe
With the North Bay’s LNU Complex Fire topping 124,000 acres Wednesday and new state evacuation orders emerging every few hours, local and state officials urged Bay Area residents to take a variety of precautions. The city of Healdsburg said Wednesday evening that all of its roughly 12,000 residents should be prepared to evacuate their homes “soon.”
Everybody had known for days that a heat wave was about to wallop California. Yet a dashboard maintained by the organization that manages the state’s electric grid showed that scores of power plants were down or producing below peak strength, a stunning failure of planning, poor record keeping and sheer bad luck.
California could one day have a quick-strike panel focused on spotting emerging contaminants in drinking water to see if they pose a danger and need immediate attention.
The state also could certify labs to increase the amount of so-called forever chemicals that can be tested for in drinking water, aquifers, lakes, and streams.
The two initiatives are among more than 300 bills relating to energy and environment policy filed by California legislators in the 2020 session. They tackle issues like water contamination, wildfires, recycling, air quality, and other matters affecting the state’s nearly 40 million residents.
Meteorologists say much of Northern California likely will not see a drop of rain in February, heightening concerns that summer will arrive with below-average rainfall and tinder-dry hillsides susceptible to wildfire.
It’s too early to declare the rainy season a bust, as there could be huge storms in March and April. But a bone-dry February would make it nearly impossible to catch up to seasonal expectations, meteorologists warn.
As California deals with the aftermath of several devastating wildfires, heavy rainfall hitting the charred remains of the terrain could cause floods in the southern part of the state.
Rainfall in Southern California began on Tuesday, flooding some roads, and was forecast to continue through Thursday morning. Some areas of California were expected to see rainfall rates of up to half an inch per hour, prompting the National Weather Service to issue a Flash Flood Watch.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
