Not a regional aberration
As of Friday, the Smokehouse Creek Fire had affected more than a million acres, making it the largest wildfire in Texas history, and one of the biggest in the history of the country. Still only 15 percent contained, it has crossed into Oklahoma, leaving in its wake herds of dead cattle and dozens of burned homes. At least two people have died. The forecast is for what people in the firefighting business call “fire weather” — hot, dry and windy. Under these conditions, the dozen fires in the region could, theoretically, keep burning indefinitely.
Texans know that fires aren’t uncommon in the Panhandle this time of year, and neither is snow. But huge, lethal fires like Smokehouse Creek represent something different. Winter fires on this scale signal a much larger disruption to climate stability that will distort not only our concept of seasons, but everything we do and care about.
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For weeks now, red flag warnings from the National Weather Service indicating elevated wildfire risk have been popping up all across the United States — from the Mexican border to the Great Lakes and the Florida panhandle. Similar warnings are appearing north of the Canadian border. On Feb. 20, the province of Alberta, the Texas-size petro-state above Montana, declared the official start to fire season. This was nearly two weeks earlier than last year, and six weeks earlier than a couple of decades ago. Alberta is in the heart of Canada, a famously cold and snowy place, and yet some 50 wildfires are burning across that province. In neighboring British Columbia, where I live, there are nearly 100 active fires, a number of which carried over from last year’s legendary fire season (the worst in Canadian history) linked to low snowpack and above average winter temperatures.
…What is happening in North America is not a regional aberration; it’s part of a global departure — what climate scientists call a phase shift. The past year has seen virtually every metric of planetary distress lurch into uncharted territory: sea surface temperature, air temperature, polar ice loss, fire intensity — you name it, it is off the charts.
Gonna be a bumpy ride.
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As far as bumpy rides go, we’ve had it pretty easy. Being surrounded by agriculture means not having to worry about forest fires, but things have been abnormal nonetheless. This is the least snowy winter I’ve ever witnessed; February saw quite a number of days well above seasonal, in the low teens Celsius (that’s high 40s, low50s F). I don’t think the rains we had made up for it, and rain is immediately drained off, not banked away like snow. The lack of snow likely had an impact on creatures dependent on snow cover to forage safely (we’d usually see vole paths under the snow), and the lack of meltwater (from months of snow we didn’t get) isn’t going to do much good for the farmers or anyone else who needs water in just the right amount at just the right time.. We might not burn up, but we can still dry up.
YNNB
Where are you?
That sounds about like what we have experience in the Calgary area.
I’m in London, in Southwestern Ontario, which is largely surrounded by the Great Lakes. We usually get a lot of lake effect snow, but this year not so much. Places a bit farther north got more than we did; we would look at the radar in hope, but ended up with very little. I’ve always liked winter, and it feels like this year we never got one. How much of this is El Nino, how much is ongoing climate change I have no idea. Winters have been getting less snowy for some time.
I did spend a few years studying at U Western Ontario in the 1980s. I found the amount of snow and below 0 C weather disappointingly low after growing up in Ottawa. Here in Calgary we got about a week or two of real cold (-20s C) this winter, but to much above 0 for my taste as a XC skier.