Will 2026 Be An Above-Normal Wildfire Year in Washington State?

Virtually every spring, some media and activists claim that the upcoming summer will bring above-normal wildfire activity over the Pacific Northwest because of global warming/climate change (see example from last year below).  

The Seattle Times Climate Lab consistently predicts above-normal fire risks

So what does real data actually say?    That will be the topic of this blog.

Let's start with actual wildfire information:  the total wildfire acreage over Washington State's WA DNR (Department of Natural Resources) lands for the last decade (see below).

You will note no upward trend.    Also note that the last few "drought"  years have had below normal wildfire area.   

If we compare the Washington State wildfire area against temperature or precipitation across the state, you will note a poor correspondence (see below).  Clearly,  other elements (e.g.,  fuel availability, wind, lightning, human ignition) are important as well.

So what about this summer?  

An important supporting element for fire is the availability of surface dry fuels (e.g., dry grasses), and there is a website (the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Fuelcast website) that has this information.

The image below shows the latest on the availability of surface fuels such as grasses and flammable vegetation (yellow is below average and green above average).   

Lower than normal over much of eastern Washington but above normal over the Cascades, including its eastern slopes.    

So good news for the lowlands of eastern Washington and the western slopes of the Cascades.  A cause for concern over the upper eastern Cascade slopes...where there was lots of vegetative production by the bountiful precipitation this year. 

The latest European Center seasonal precipitation forecasts are a mixed bag.  For April/May/June, predicts drier than normal conditions over western Washington and the Cascades, fostering a drying of vegetation and surface debris.

On the other hand, it is predicted to be wetter than normal conditions for the critical July to September period when most of our fires occur.

For temperature, the EC prediction is for warmer-than-normal temperatures (see below), which contributes to drying.

But as shown earlier, temperature and precipitation are only part of the story for local wildfires.

Lightning is critical, particularly since it often ignites fire in remote areas.  

Strong winds are essential for the biggest fires, contributing to ignition and rapidly spreading the flames. 

Human ignition is important, and that depends in part on the willingness of utilities to maintain lines and de-energize when advisable.   

Fuel availability is significant, and we have a good idea now of the vulnerable areas (eastern slopes of the Cascades).

To put it concisely,  a simple argument that global warming causes more fires is simplistic and generally wrong, and a more nuanced and data-driven analysis is critical.

The Origin of the Puget Sound Tornado

Around 3 PM on Wednesday, a tornado was spotted over Puget Sound (see picture below).  Technically, this rotating wind feature is known as a waterspout since it developed over water.

Such Puget Sound twisters have occurred before, and in this blog, I will describe their origins.

Monday's waterspout was produced by a thunderstorm associated with cold, unstable air forced to rise by a Puget Sound convergence zone.

As I noted in a previous blog, we had unusually cold air aloft on Monday....a gift from the Arctic Express from Alaska.  The figure below shows the temperature at around 5000 ft at 5 PM on Wednesday, with blue colors indicating below-normal temperatures.

With warmer air near the surface, this created a large change of temperature with height, which produces the potential for great instability in the vertical, leading to convection with towering cumulus clouds and even thunderstorms.

Such thunderstorms are aided by having low-level air convergence, which produces upward motion (see below).  This gives an upward kick to the air to rise.

On Wednesday, we had a very effective source of low-level convergence:  a Puget Sound Convergence Zone, forced by air forced around the Olympic Mountains (see schematic below).   

This combination of low-level air convergnce and and an unstable atmosphere produced a band of cumulonimbus clouds (thunderstorms), which were evident on an infrared satellite image with lightning observations  (see below, red crosses show lightning strikes)

The weather radar image at 3 PM indicated the strong thunderstorm cell associated with the Puget Sound convergence zone (red colors show the heaviest rain).

The Space Needle Cam indicated very heavy precipitation with the thunderstorm cell.  Wow.

But why a tornado?    Where did the rotation come from?  

There is inherent rotation from the converging winds in a convergence zone (see below), and that rotation can be increased by the strong vertical motion in a thunderstorm (see schematic below).   

The increasing spin is analogous to the increasing spin of a skater when they bring their hands in (see below)

Puget Sound is hardly a place where storm chasers gather to view tornadoes.    But there is a long history of weak tornadoes associated with Puget Sound Convergence zones, something I describe in my Northwest Weather book.

For example, a bunch of kids were lifted into the air on June 14, 2001, over West Seattle!  And Bill Gates' childhood home in North Seattle was seriously damaged by a tornado in 1962.

Announcement

I will hold a special online Zoom session at 10 AM on Saturday for Patreon supporters.  Will answer questions and talk more about the recent Sound tornado and about drought issues.