Smokey Bear sign stolen in Wisconsin

Smokey sign stolen

Sunday morning between 2 a.m. and 7 a.m. a thief with a chain saw made several cuts with the saw to remove the six feet tall image of Smokey Bear, weighing between 35 and 40 pounds, from a fire prevention sign in Vernon, Wisconsin.

And speaking of Smokey, here’s a throwback image of President Dwight D. Eisenhower holding a Smokey doll. It appears that Smokey is wearing a shirt — usually he is naked from the waist up. Either that or he has a badge pinned directly to his chest.

Ike and SmokeyIke Photo via U.S. Forest Service.

 

Researchers link smoke from fires to tornado intensity

Some university and federal government scientists have concluded there is a link between smoke generated by vegetation fires in Central America and the intensity of tornadoes in the southeast United States. Their research was funded primarily by the federal government, but if you want a copy of their results it will cost you $38 — rather than making the government funded product available to taxpayers as an Open Access document.

Below are some highlights of their research.

Can smoke from fires intensify tornadoes?

“Yes,” say University of Iowa researchers, who examined the effects of smoke—resulting from spring agricultural land-clearing fires in Central America—transported across the Gulf of Mexico and encountering tornado conditions already in process in the United States.

The UI study, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, examined the smoke impacts on a historic severe weather outbreak that occurred during the afternoon and evening of April 27, 2011. The weather event produced 122 tornadoes, resulted in 313 deaths across the southeastern United States, and is considered the most severe event of its kind since 1950.

The outbreak was caused mainly by environmental conditions leading to a large potential for tornado formation and conducive to supercells, a type of thunderstorm. However, smoke particles intensified these conditions, according to co-lead authors Gregory Carmichael, professor of chemical and biochemical engineering, and Pablo Saide, Center for Global and Regional Environmental Research (CGRER) postdoctoral fellow.

They say the smoke lowered the base of the clouds and increased wind shear, defined as wind speed variations with respect to altitude. Together, those two conditions increased the likelihood of more severe tornadoes. The effects of smoke on these conditions had not been previously described, and the study found a novel mechanism to explain these interactions.

“These results are of great importance, as it is the first study to show smoke influence on tornado severity in a real case scenario. Also, severe weather prediction centers do not include atmospheric particles and their effects in their models, and we show that they should at least consider it,” says Carmichael.

“We show the smoke influence for one tornado outbreak, so in the future we will analyze smoke effects for other outbreaks on the record to see if similar impacts are found and under which conditions they occur,” says Saide. “We also plan to work along with model developers and institutions in charge of forecasting to move forward in the implementation, testing and incorporation of these effects on operational weather prediction models.”

In order to make their findings, the researchers ran computer simulations based upon data recorded during the 2011 event. One type of simulation included smoke and its effect on solar radiation and clouds, while the other omitted smoke. In fact, the simulation including the smoke resulted in a lowered cloud base and greater wind shear.

Future studies will focus on gaining a better understanding of the impacts of smoke on near-storm environments and tornado occurrence, intensity, and longevity, adds Carmichael, who also serves as director of the Iowa Informatics Initiative and co-director of CGRER.

Paper co-authors are Scott Spak ofthe UI Departments of Urban and Regional Planning and Civil and Environmental Engineering; Bradley Pierce and Andrew Heidinger of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Satellite and Information Service Center for Satellite Applications and Research; Jason Otkin and Todd Schaack of the Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Arlindo da Silva of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center; and Meloë Kacenelenbogen and Jens Redemann of NASA.

The paper “Central American biomass burning smoke can increase tornado severity in the U.S.” can be found online [for a fee of up to $38].

The research was funded by grants from NASA, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, National Institutes of Health, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Fulbright-CONICYT scholarship program in Chile.

Western Australia bushfire burns 143,000 acres

Satellite photo of two fires in Western Australia. The southern most one is near Northcliffe. Photo at 10:30 UTC, February 4, 2015. SSEC.
Satellite photo of two fires in Western Australia. The southern most one is near Northcliffe. Photo at 10:30 UTC, February 4, 2015. SSEC. (click to enlarge)

Below is an excerpt from an article at http://www.news.com.au/:

FIREFIGHTERS have been working around the clock for the past five days to protect lives and homes from the Northcliffe bushfire.

But despite their best efforts, the blaze has doubled since Tuesday night and has destroyed more than 58,000 hectares [143,000 acres].

Residents in Northcliffe and the subdivisions of Parkview, Bracken Rise and Double Bridge in the Shire Manjimup have been told their town sites are “undefendable” and they must leave, advice that most have heeded.

For people in Windy Harbour, it’s too late to leave. They’ve been told to seek shelter at the beach. A Department of Fire and Emergency spokesman said people at Windy Harbour might have to leave by boat or helicopter.

The blaze is frequently changing direction because of wind changes.

“It has been swinging around a lot,” one of the 40 or so people still in Northcliffe, general store manager Graham Munro, told Fairfax radio.

“The wind is blowing away from the town at the moment, so it’s pretty good, but there’s still ash around.

“Yesterday for a while it was heading straight at the town … across land that had previously been burnt, but then of course it swung around took off like a rocket for the coast again.”

West Australian town of Northcliffe is “indefensible” from approaching bushfire

Northcliffe bushfire
In this NASA image acquired February 1, 2015 smoke from a large fire burning near Northcliffe in Western Australia can be seen being pushed into the Indian Ocean by a strong northeast wind. Red outlines indicate hot spots where MODIS detected unusually warm surface temperatures associated with fire. A high-res (2 MB) version of the photo is available.

All 400 residents of the town of Northcliffe in Western Australia have been urged to evacuate due to a nearby bushfire that has burned 25,000 hectares (61,000 acres) 350 kilometers (217 miles) southeast of Perth. The fire has been burning for five days pushed primarily by a northeast wind. However the wind has shifted and is now coming out of the south and is expected to change on Wednesday to a southwest wind, both of which will push the fire closer to the town, and ultimately change the direction of spread by 180 degrees. In addition, predicted thunderstorms could bring stronger, more unpredictable winds that could result in extreme fire behavior, complicate fire suppression efforts, and compromise the safety of firefighters.

Below are excerpts from an article at ABC.NET in Australia:

…Meanwhile authorities have told residents who chose to remain in Northcliffe, about 350 kilometres south of Perth, there was no prospect of bringing the blaze threatening the town under control in the near future. Smoke and embers were blown back into the small community by a southerly wind, with the fire front about 5 kilometres from the town as of 3:00pm.

Firefighters battled to protect the western line of the blaze to try to stop it sweeping through the town, but it will be pressured by a southerly wind further into the afternoon and evening. The Department of Fire and Emergency Services (DFES) said a prevailing south-westerly wind forecast for Wednesday could be potentially catastrophic as the northern flank of the fire would be opened up to blowback.

Firefighters said they had no resources to deal with the eastern end of the fire, where the blaze started, which could become the front of the fire in the case of a wind change.

About 240 firefighters were at the scene, as were 60 support staff. One property – an unoccupied farmhouse – was destroyed by the flames on Monday.

The video below is a report from the field about the fire.

The next video includes maps of several fires in Western Australia.

Wildfire potential, February through May

The Predictive Services section at the National Interagency Fire Center has issued their Wildland Fire Potential Outlook for February through May. The data represents the cumulative forecasts of the eleven Geographic Area Predictive Services Units and the National Predictive Services Unit.

If their predictions are accurate, the midwest should experience higher than normal wildfire activity from March through May, while most of the southeast should be slower than normal through May.

Here are the highlights from their outlook.

February

February wildfire potential

  • Above normal significant wildland fire potential exists across much of the Hawaiian Islands.
  • Below normal significant wildland fire potential is expected for the Southeast from Texas to the mid-Atlantic.
  • Normal significant wildland fire potential elsewhere.

March

March wildfire potential

  • Above normal significant wildland fire potential will develop across the Mississippi Valley.
  • Above normal significant wildland fire potential will continue across much of Hawaii.
    Below normal significant wildland fire potential will along the coastal plain of the Southeast.
  • Normal significant wildland fire potential elsewhere.

April through May

April-May wildfire potential

  • Above normal significant wildland fire potential will continue across the Mississippi Valley and expand eastward to the Great Lakes and Ohio and Tennessee Valley states.
  • Above normal significant wildland fire potential will continue across much of Hawaii.
  • Below normal significant wildland fire potential will continue for the central Texas and the MidAtlantic and Southeast coasts.

As a bonus, here is NOAA’s monthly drought outlook.

February Drought OutlookAnd, the Drought Monitor for the 48 contiguous states:

Drought Monitor January 27, 2015

 

Ten Sleep FD fire hall destroyed by fire

Ten Sleep FD fire
Ten Sleep FD. Photo by Talon Wayne Loveless.

The fire hall and all five pieces of apparatus of the Ten Sleep Rural Fire District were destroyed by a fire Saturday night, The 300-person community is on Highway 16 in north-central Wyoming between Worland and Buffalo.

Ten Sleep FD truck destroyed by the fire. Photo by Talon Wayne Loveless.
Ten Sleep Rural Fire District truck destroyed by the fire. Photo by Talon Wayne Loveless.

The cause of the fire was a propane leak. Below is an excerpt from County 10:

Working with the State Fire Marshall’s Office the cause of the fire was determined to be from the weight of heavy snow on the roof of the fire hall. The snow fell through the roof and landed on a propane line, fracturing it and filling the fire hall with propane, according to [Washakie County Fire Chief Chris] Kocher.

“After the fire hall built up with a sufficient amount of propane, it was ignited with one of the appliances in the fire hall. This led to the explosion and the fire hall was then engulfed in flames, ” reported Kocher.

Ten Sleep Fire Department Fire Hall,
Ten Sleep Rural Fire District Fire Hall, before the fire. Photo from Google Maps.

Ten Sleep FD map

A Gofundme account has been established that hopes to raise $100,000 in donations to assist the department in recovering from their loss.