Long periods of dry weather have caused drought conditions to increase in the central and northeastern regions of the United States, which raises the concern for wildfires heading into November.
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00:00Where we are right now when it comes to the wildfires, where that compares to the historical average, and what we're expecting for the rest of this season, Paul?
00:07Yeah, I mean, if you look at the current stats right now, we are above average on acreage burned, and basically because of two fires this year,
00:16the Smoke Creek House Fire, that actually happened in late February, that one was over a million acres, one of the biggest fires we've seen in Texas history,
00:25and the other one, the Park Fire, which over a million acres is burned in California, half of that has come from the Park Fire, which is contained,
00:32it happened over the summer season, and that was an arsonist starting fire. So, you know, you look at these stats here, and, you know, we're getting close to that 8 million,
00:42I think we're going to see the acreage come down, but the number of fires are going to go up because of things that are happening in the Central and Eastern U.S. right now.
00:50Yeah, and those things that are happening is the lack of rain. Let's take a look at the drought monitor across the country, where almost every single state is under at least dry,
00:58if not all the way up to exceptional drought.
01:00It's the fall season. You know, fire season just doesn't end when it stops getting hot. I mean, we know that in the West, we know that there's conditions that set up,
01:08like the Santa Anas, that haven't really kicked in yet, but the peak season for Santa Ana season is October through January, believe it or not,
01:15but things have been kind of calm there, and actually improving in the Northwest, but the drought that has kicked in in the Middle and Eastern part of the nation right now is having a significant factor.
01:24Plus, we're getting into the cooler season, so it's more active with storms, and we're seeing more wind events, and those wind events are, you know, any smaller fires are turning into larger fires and becoming a bigger problem.
01:38So, brush fires are a big concern in the Middle Nation right now.
01:41Yeah, and the video you're seeing on your screen from some of the past wildfires here, but giving you an idea of what this pattern could bring, and Paul, can you break down for our viewers of why has it been so dry?
01:52Yeah, you know, you look at the pattern that's set up here, we've had this kind of blocked up pattern off the Atlantic, and everything that tries to come in west to east really doesn't get forward, doesn't have a lot of moisture.
02:03Also, the Gulf of Mexico has been kind of shut down and suppressed, and so all the moisture has been down in the Caribbean and not, you know, being driven northward with any fronts.
02:12And the lack of fronts early on over the last couple of weeks has been an issue as well.
02:17Now we're starting to get into a busier pattern, and we see some improvements coming down the road here.
02:22Yeah, let's look at those improvements here when we look at future rainfall, because parts of the country will get some beneficial rain, but others are going to miss out.
02:30Yeah, if you look at the future cast here, as far as rainfall goes, you see in the Midwest and parts of the Ohio Valley, we're starting to pick up some precipitation, although it's not nearly enough of what we need going forward here through the late fall and early winter season.
02:44So we need some more moisture, and we need these fronts to start getting some moisture out of the Gulf.
02:48It's not completely connected, but it's enough to kind of hold back some of these brush fires.
02:54And we're also seeing a pickup in moisture in the northwest into the north-central Rockies, and I think that pattern will continue all the way into early November, so look for more containment of fires in the northwestern United States.
03:07And that's what this next graphic kind of shows. Those areas that you just mentioned that will get some beneficial rain, there's at least the lowering risk, but there's a lot of red on the map. Explain that.
03:17Yeah, the red areas are a higher risk. It's not that everyone is going to get hit with a fire in that general region, but just a higher risk because of the patterns setting up through November.
03:28We have dry conditions in the lower Mississippi Valley, Tennessee Valley. Wind events could be a problem to kick-start some of these fires. We already have a couple of fires right now going on in Louisiana.
03:38You already talked about what's happening in the northeast today, a big day with the wind and the dry conditions. It's not going to take much for any of these smaller fires to really become larger fires and a bigger problem.
03:48But look at the yellow areas. There are fires in these general regions, but it's going to improve because they have the higher chance of getting more precipitation over the next couple of weeks and even into parts of November.
04:01So I think this is the areas that we feel going forward have a higher risk or a lower risk into the November time period.