The National Weather Service is predicting the year’s first major heat wave will hit U.S. states in the West starting Tuesday.
NWS has forecasted temperatures at above normal from June 4 through at least June 17, according to its 8- to 14-day temperature outlook.
The heatwave will likely worsen wildfires in Arizona, New Mexico, and California. The temperature spike is expected to significantly affect crews currently fighting the Corral Fire near the city of Livermore outside of San Francisco. Numerous counties in the area are under excessive heat warnings and heat advisories. The fire has burned more than 14,000 acres as of Tuesday afternoon, has caused the evacuation of thousands, and sits at 90 percent containment.
“This morning is the calm before the warm as the first batch of Heat Advisories go into effect in the North and East Bay,” said the NWS San Francisco Bay Area office.
The National Weather Service is predicting the year’s first major heat wave will hit U.S. states in the West starting Tuesday.
NWS has forecasted temperatures at above normal from June 4 through at least June 17, according to its 8- to 14-day temperature outlook.
Oklahoma is the testing ground for a new wildfire system that uses local National Weather Service (NWS) forecast offices to quicken alerts sent to nearby communities.
Oklahoma State Forester Mark Goeller explained the system to representatives while testifying at the hearing. He said the software, using NWS data and local emergency management warning systems, significantly reduces fire warning times by predicting a wildfire’s potential spread from the ignition point.
“The fire warning was issued in just six minutes on a recent wildfire occurring in a heavily populated wildland/urban interface area in the Oklahoma City metro,” Goeller said. “Oklahoma is the first state in the nation to use this system. Using our legacy process, it often required approximately 90 minutes to issue the fire warning.”
The Wildfire Analyst software has three core applications, according to Technosylva. The software’s “FireSim” application was the main tool Goeller referred to during the hearing. The application generates real-time fire spread predictions and supports wildfire planning through “what if” scenarios. The software’s other two applications, “FireRisk” and “FireSight,” predict wildfire risk days through forecasts and calculate risk reduction, respectively.
The state’s goal to overhaul its wildfire alert system started after its 2005-06 season when numerous fires burned in Texas and Oklahoma, Goeller said during the hearing. The fires resulted from prolonged drought and strong winds and killed 25 people and 5,000 head of cattle — and destroyed hundreds of homes, according to the Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center.
Soon after that catastrophic season, the “Southern Great Plains Wildfire Outbreak Group” came together, including members of the Oklahoma Forestry Services, Texas Forest Service, and National Weather Service forecast offices. The partnership spawned from that group eventually led officials to look specifically at how weather dynamics did and could affect the states’ wildfire response.
“The things that I would emphasize as the lessons learned are for other states’ forestry agencies and local emergency management agencies to get to really working closely with their National Weather Service forecast offices,” Goeller said. “Look at the model we apply in Oklahoma, look at the process we went through … the research that went into what affects our weather systems would absolutely be employable in other places.”
Oklahoma is the testing ground for a new wildfire system that uses local National Weather Service (NWS) forecast offices to quicken alerts sent to nearby communities.
The alert system software, called “Wildfire Analyst,” was created by wildfire technology company Technosylva. Its promising results were backed up at a recent U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space and Technology hearing.
