With the Red Flag Warnings for strong winds and low humidity, the smoke map below might look even more impressive by the end of the day today.
Wildfire smoke map and Red Flag Warnings, September 19, 2012
Tag: weather
Fires have gotten larger since 1970
Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories Uncategorized1 Comment on Fires have gotten larger since 1970 
We can debate the reasons for it, but there is no question that over the last 40 years the average size of wildfires has increased. The data we collected from the National Interagency Fire Center when grouped by decade shows that the average size of fires between 1970 and 2009 has more than quadrupled.
Climate Central has also noticed this and issued a report about the change in fire activity over the last 42 years. Here are some highlights:
- The National Research Council reports that for every degree Celsius (1.8°F) of temperature increase, the size of the area burned in the Western U.S. could quadruple.
- For the last decade, compared to the 1970s, there were 7 times more fires greater than 10,000 acres and nearly 5 times more fires larger than 25,000 acres each year.
- Since the 1970s the average number of fires over 1,000 acres each year has nearly quadrupled in Arizona and Idaho, and has doubled in California, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming.
- The burn season is two and a half months longer than 40 years ago.
- Rising spring and summer temperatures across the West appear to be correlated to the increasing size and numbers of wildfires. Spring and summer temperatures have increased more rapidly across this region than the rest of the country, in recent decades. Since 1970, years with above-average spring and summer temperatures were typically years with the biggest wildfires.
In spite of this clear trend of increasing wildfires, Congress and the Administration have been reducing the budgets of the federal land management agencies, and have cut the number of large air tankers on exclusive use contracts by 80 percent since 2002, from 44 to 9. However, seven more air tankers may be added over the next year, bringing the total to 16. William Scott, a fire aviation expert who also has experience in the National Security Agency, thinks that terrorists could, and perhaps already are waging economic war inside the United State by starting wildfires which can cost the government and residents billions of dollars.
Thanks go out to Kelly
Video of fire tornado in Australia
Outback fire tornadoes-Australia from chris tangey on Vimeo.
Check out the strong indrafts going toward the fire vortices in this video. Very impressive.
We have written quite a few articles about fire tornadoes, sometimes called fire whirls. The more scientific name for them is fire vortices. Our posts about them can be found under the tag “fire tornado“.
Here is the description of the above video on YouTube:
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THERE’S something mean and magical about Australia’s Outback. An Alice Springs filmmaker captured both when a whirlwind of fire erupted before his eyes.
Chris Tangey of Alice Springs Film and Television was scouting locations near Curtin Springs station, about 80km from Ularu, last week when confronted by a fiery phenomenon.
He had just finished his tour of the station when workers encountered difficulties with a grader. So he went to help them.
A small fire was burning in nearby bushland, so Mr Tangey decided to start filming.
He caught the sight of his life.
A twister touched down on the spot fire, fanning it into a furious tower of flame.
“It sounded like a jet fighter going by, yet there wasn’t a breath of wind where we were,” he told the Northern Territory News.
“You would have paid $1000 a head if you knew it was about to happen.”
The column of fire danced about the landscape for about 40 minutes, he said, as he and the station workers stood transfixed.
There was talk of making a quick getaway, Mr Tangey said. But everyone was too hypnotised to feel scared – and he continued furiously filming.
“The bizarre thing was that it rarely moved,” he said.
“These things just stood there because there was no wind to move them … but it was flickering incredibly fast.”
Darwin weather forecaster David Matthews said small twisters were common in isolated areas. But the fiery vortex was highly unusual.
“The flames would have assisted by trying to suck in air and that could have helped generate those circular winds,” Mr Matthews said.
Comparing maps for Red Flag Warnings
Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories Uncategorized1 Comment on Comparing maps for Red Flag Warnings 
Yesterday someone commented that red flag warning data from two sources was different. Today we have maps from the sources that were part of the discussion, Google Earth (using the “NWS Fire Weather WWA” data layer) and Weather.gov. The maps were harvested at the same time and show what appear to be exactly the same information about red flag warnings. If the maps are viewed at different times, the data can vary. They are the result of input from dozens of National Weather Service offices, which at various times submit warning data as other warnings expire.
One significant difference is that the Google Earth map more clearly displays fire weather watch areas, while the map from Weather.gov uses what appears to be the same light beige color to display fire weather watches, special weather statements, and hazardous weather outlooks, making that function less useful. But the Weather.gov map seems to have a higher resolution for the boundaries of the warning areas, county by county, if you look closely and squint your eyes.
Which map do you like better?
Red Flag Warnings for September 10
Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories Uncategorized7 Comments on Red Flag Warnings for September 10 
The map shows Red Flag Warnings in effect for today.
I wonder if the weather forecasters at the National Weather Service realize that when their map shows weather patterns adhering to state boundaries it reduces the credibility of their product. This map brings up some questions… are there really no warnings for Utah, Colorado or western North Dakota? Or, are there really warnings for all of Wyoming and South Dakota? Which portions of the map are accurate?
UPDATE at 9 a.m. September 11, 2012:
I asked Darren R. Clabo, the South Dakota State Fire Meteorologist, for his insight about this issue, and he was kind enough to provide the following:
…It really has to do with the NWS Local Forecast Area boundaries and the boundaries of the individual GACCs.
Here is the link that shows the local NWS office coverage areas as the NWS issues the Red Flag Warning (RFW). Each individual office has the responsibility to issue RFWs for their forecast area. These areas encompass distinct counties, some of which have common borders with other states. Each NWS forecast office does talk to neighboring offices to try to make their forecasts ‘mesh’ but often times, one office will issue a warning while another will not; it all depends on forecaster confidence in the particular weather situation.
It can even get more confusing: The GACCs, in concert with the NWS, determine the criteria for a RFW for their region (due to the different climates within the GACCs). For example, the Rocky Mountain GACC has specific RFW criteria, while the Northern Rockies GACC has a slightly different RFW criteria. If we look at western SD, Harding County typically sees more RFWs than the rest of West River. This is because Harding County is in the Northern Rockies GACC while the rest of SD is in the Rocky Mountain GACC. Furthermore, the GACC boundaries do not correspond to the NWS local office boundaries which contribute to the confusion as well.
Geographic “boundaries” in meteorology always present large hurdles in terms of communicating a forecast, especially when it comes to forecast areas. The zero-order boundaries for RFWs on the map do look goofy but I am not sure how else they could go about it.
Hope this helps-
Red Flag Warnings, Sunday September 9
Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories Uncategorized1 Comment on Red Flag Warnings, Sunday September 9 
Much of the northwestern United States is under a Red Flag Warning for Sunday, and also Monday for some locations. More details HERE.
The warnings will affect the three megafires in Idaho. For example on the Mustang Fire, the rather interesting forecast on Sunday is for strong winds gusting up to 29 mph. In the morning they should be out of the south in alignment with the valley along Highway 93 on the east side of the fire between North Fork and Gibbonsville, then switching to west or west-southwest in the afternoon. There will be a 13% to 28% chance of rain during the day along with a chance of lightning, but the relative humidity will bottom out at 13%.
Sunday may be a very interesting day on the fires in Idaho.
