More Good News Regarding Northwest Wildfires

The wildfire season in the Pacific Northwest is rapidly approaching the endgame, with huge declines during the past month.

To illustrate the profound change, consider the satellite-based wildfire observations for today versus one month ago (below).

Today,  there are only a handful of hot spots on the northeast side of the Cascades.  No apparent fires in Oregon.

A month ago, it was a different story with numerous and massive fires (mainly the result of lightning) in both states.

Air quality is good through most of the region today, with some very localized degradation near some of the smoldering fires.

A sharp drought of low pressure will move through over the weekend, mainly to the south of Washington.  

As a result, southern Washington State and Oregon will see substantial precipitation (see totals through Monday morning below).   Bad for fires.

And temperatures should be cooler than normal from Friday to next Wednesday (see below), which should help suppress fires as well.

Pretty confident that this is the endgame for Washington/Oregon fires this year.

In a future blog, I will make the case that 2026 was predominantly a grass/range wildfire year in the Northwest.  The quote on AI source:

In Oregon—which surpassed historical records with over 2.3 million acres burned—short grass and dry brush served as the primary fuel source for roughly 1.8 million of those acres

And something else.  This is turning into a very attenuated wildfire year for California, with this year possessing less than half of the average over the past five years (see below).  That could change, of course.

Seattle and Weather Disasters. We Can Do Better Than Los Angeles and New Orleans!

Weather prediction has become far more skillful in recent decades, with nearly all major regional weather/climate threats accurately predicted days in advance.  

Unfortunately, several major cities have not taken advantage of the profoundly more skillful forecasts, resulting in unnecessarily severe loss of life and property.

For example, Los Angeles experienced immense damage and many deaths from the 2025 wildfires, the result of a well-forecast Santa Ana wind event.

Los Angeles, January 2025

Thousands died in New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina, whose track was skillfully forecast several days before.

Seattle was caught unprepared for a well-predicted snowstorm in 2008, leading to a crippled city and the mayor being kicked out of office.  In 2022, the region was not prepared for a well-forecast freezing rainstorm.

I just published a paper on the topic: Excellent Forecasts but Poor Outcomes: Why Can’t We Do Better?

Seattle and the vicinity are vulnerable to well-forecast environmental threats, such as:

• Windstorms associated with Pacific cyclones
• Downslope windstorms descending the Cascades
• Snowstorms
• Ice storms 
• Wildfire smoke
• Coldwaves 
• Heatwaves
• Heavy rain and flooding

To deal with all these threats, Seattle should create an ENVIRONMENTAL WARNING SYSTEM.  

A system that would monitor the potential for such threats, provide online forecasts of their impacts, and push critical, site-specific information out to smartphones and other devices.

Here is a sample of what I am thinking of:

You could monitor on your mobile device or computer, or request a notification when a meteorological threat looms.  You could receive warnings and recommendations for personal actions to save lives or property.

Since your device knows your location, information and warnings could be specific to your position.

Some of you may know that the UW has already built components of such a system.   For example, there is Seattle SnowWatch:

And Seattle WindWatch:

To build a comprehensive environmental monitoring and forecasting system for Seattle, King County, or other locations is quite possible and could save many lives and prevent property damage.

If heavy rains were expected at your location, you could attend to drains and gutters, avoid sleeping in the basement, and evacuate potentially flooded areas.   Cities could bring in staff to clear drains.  

For cold waves, homeless folks could be required to move inside (there have been too many deaths in Seattle from exposure in the past several years).    For strong wind events, folks could avoid sleeping when trees could fall and prepare for outages.  City Light could pre-position crews and resources.

You get the idea. 

With highly skillful and site-specific warnings, society could make better decisions and greatly reduce the impacts of strong local weather events.  The number of people injured or killed by severe weather could be greatly reduced with the proper application of the amazing forecast skill available today.

Western Washington and Oregon Wildfires are Most Frequent This Time of the Year: Should We Worry?

Climatologically, the most costly meteorological disaster west of the Cascade crest occurs at this time of the year:  massive wildfires associated with strong easterly winds.

Here is a map of the big ones through 2020

And here are their dates, areas, and direct fatalities.  Late August and early September are the favored times.

Why late summer?    

One reason is that surface fuels are relatively dry after our warm, near-rainless summer.  But even more important, early September is a period when western Washington and Oregon can experience very strong, very dry easterly winds.

It is really hard to get big fires in the west when cool, moist air floods western Oregon and Washington.  Strong easterly winds (from the east) are very dry, starting in eastern Oregon and Washington.  They dry even more as they descend the western slopes of the Cascades.

During the late summer and early fall, high pressure can build inland (associated with cold, dense air moving southward out of Canada).   See example below.

With high pressure inland and lower pressure along the coast, offshore-directed easterly winds develop, as illustrated by the winds at 850 hPa (about 5000 ft) at the same time.

These easterly winds, and the accompanying dry air, can start and maintain fires, such as the huge Labor Day fires of 2020.

I know your next question: will this happen this year?  

I have very good news.  It has not happened yet, and model forecasts do not suggest that this pattern will set up during the next two weeks.   After that, the threat declines rapidly.

To show this, here is the forecast for meteorological conditions at Stampede Pass in the central Cascades.  No strong easterly wind periods.  Other mountain sites are similar.

Major fires on the western side of the Northwest can easily run into the billions of dollars and result in many injuries and deaths.

What about climate change?  Will that make such fires more frequent?  

Published research (some done by my group) has found that global warming will cause a DECLINE in widespread wildfires.

That is not a typo.  A DECLINE. 

Why?  Because global warming preferentially warms the interior of the continent, with the less dense, warmer air weakening the interior high pressure that drives easterly flow

Announcement

I will be teaching Atmospheric Sciences 101 this autumn if anyone is interested.  It provides a good general intro to meteorology and weather prediction.  It will be hybrid, both in person (MUCH, MUCH BETTER) and online.  Information is found here: 

https://a.atmos.washington.edu/~cliff/ATMS101Y2026.html

Tropical Storms Invade Hawaiian Waters: The Role of El Nino

Normally, tropical storms and hurricanes avoid the area of the Hawaiian Islands.  

Why?   Because the nearby Pacific is usually too cool!  

In general, surface temperatures must reach at least 80°F (26.5°C) to sustain tropical storm development.

This year, due to a very strong El Nino, temperatures south and east of Hawaii are 1-2 C above normal (see map of differences from normal for sea surface temperature)

As shown by a more detailed, close-in map, the 27C line just reaches Hawaii.    A "warm enough" bath is open.

No wonder tropical storms can approach Hawaii this year!

The effects of the warm water have been dramatic.

Consider satellite imagery from yesterday afternoon...and be prepared to be impressed!

A high-resolution satellite image shows three hurricanes/tropical storms over the eastern Pacific, with a red arrow pointing to the Big Island.  Wow.

Here is an infrared image of the storms.   Amazing.

Even more amazing is a series of forecast maps of evolution of the tropical storms.  I will show you maps of atmospheric moisture through depth.

Today at 11 AM, the swirls of moisture around three tropical storms are evident.  Stunning.

On Saturday morning, they are still there, with one storm passing south of the Hawaiian island

On Sunday morning, the western storm starts moving northeastward towards Hawaii!  Some moisture from the eastern storm extends into southern California, which is going to get some rain as a result

Now the most amazing thing.   The two eastward storms start to interact on Monday.

Then the combined system starts to move northwest on Tuesday.

The storm's crazy movement near Hawaii is reflected in the total precipitation over the next 10 days. You can see the northward jog, followed by a turn to the east.     Quite unusual!

A great time to visit Kauai if you are meteorologically inclined. 😊

The Fall Transition Has Begun

 One of the most remarkable aspects of Northwest climate is the rapid fall transition from summerlike conditions to cold and wet between September 1 and November 1.

This is illustrated by the average temperatures at Seattle (below).  

The current temperature forecasts are close to climatology, with no more 90s or 80s.

Climatological precipitation is on a very steep incline up (probability of measurable precipitation is shown below).  By November 1, we are about as wet as we get.

A wet weather system is now right off our coast and will move in tonight and tomorrow (see infrared satellite image for this evening).  Does not look like a summer pattern!

Rain totals through Thursday morning (shown below) will be significant.  Importantly,  precipitation will extend over eastern Washington, where some fires are still smoldering.

The official NOAA 6-10 day forecasts are for cooler-than-normal and wetter-than-normal conditions over the West Coast:

The timing of this cool/wet weather is perfect to facilitate an early end to the serious wildfire season.

With Cool/Wet Weather Ahead, The Wildfire Threat Will Rapidly Decline over the Pacific Northwest

For those concerned about the wildfire threat over the Pacific Northwest, there is good news. 

With the turn to cooler/wetter weather and a forecast for much more, the wildfire threat should rapidly decline over the Pacific Northwest.

Below is the latest wildfire satellite image, with active fires shown by red dots.  Only two fire areas are evident.  Currently, there is not much active fire activity over the entire West Coast.  California is having a very benign fire year, with roughly half the acreage of the five-year average.

Recent rainfall has greatly damped down the fires over the Pacific Northwest, and the US Forest Service is predicting that fuel moistures will decline to near climatological levels this week (see below).

Looking to the future, let's check out the latest forecasts (below).   For the next five days, the region is predicted to be substantially cooler than normal, indicated by green and blue colors.

The next five days?  Even cooler than normal  (below).  Eastern WA and Oregon, where most of the fire activity has occurred, will be particularly cold.

And there will be plenty of precipitation during that period as well.  Here is the European Center AI forecast for total precipitation through September 9.  Lots of precipitation.

The UW WRF model forecast, run by my group, is more detailed but similar (below).  Lots of rain will be falling.  Some higher elevations will get snow.

Furthermore, there are no forecasts for a major wind event on either side of the Cascades.

There are some folks claiming that we are now at the "peak"  of the wildfire season, but that is not correct.   

This is the endgame for the wildfire season for our region.    Yes, there will will be some smoldering for a few of the fires, but the big action will be over.  

"Super" El Nino Misinformaton

The media and social media are abuzz with talk about the upcoming "Super" El Niño, with forecasts of low snowpack, drought conditions, and massive wildfires (see sample below). 

My local newspaper and some amateur social media are making similar claims.

Few of these scary claims are supported by the facts: in reality, the outlook is quite favorable for our region if a "Super El Niño" continues to develop.

Let me prove this to you.

Surprisingly, there is nothing called a "Super El Nino" in the scientific world.  

If the temperature anomaly (difference from normal) of the ocean surface in the tropical Pacific is 1.5 to 2 C above normal, it is called a strong El Niño.  More than 2C, a very strong El Niño.   The media calls this a "super"; the scientific community does not.

Below is the latest forecast by NOAA.  They are predicting a very strong El Niño this autumn (peaking around 2.2 C above normal).  

There is little doubt we will get a very strong El Nino, but this is not unprecedented, with others occurring in 1982-1983, 1997-1998, 2015-2016, and 2023-2024  (others have occurred before as well).

A KEY point is that very strong El Niños are very different animals than their more moderate cousins.  With different impacts.

Moderate to strong El Niños are typically associated with less snowpack and drier-than-normal conditions.

Very strong El Niños bring near-normal snowpack and plenty of moisture.  

Thus, our water resources are generally fine with very strong El Niños like the upcoming winter.

Want the proof?

Below is a plot of precipitation from October to April (our wet season) since 1980.  The red arrows indicate very strong ("super") El Nino years, and the yellow line is the average of the period (1980 to today).   

Very strong El Niño years are NOT particularly dry... their average is a bit ABOVE NORMAL.

What about snowpack?  

Let's check out a few sites, looking at April 1 snowpack (which is generally the date used for evaluations).

Crystal Mountain Ski area (around 6000 ft)?  Snowpack during very strong El Niños is nearly normal (horizontal line) during such years.

 The much lower Stampede Pass (4000 ft)?  Same story.  

 

Even LOWER at Snoqualmie Pass (below).  Same story...nearly normal snowpack during very strong El Niño years!

Very strong El Niño years have near-normal snowpack in our mountains.    I could show you a dozen other locations:  same story.

What about temperature?    Over Washington State at the surface, very strong El Niño years are about 1°F above normal, although one was below normal (2024).

With normal rain and mountain snow during a very strong El Nino year, the expectation is that there will be plenty of water next year for our region's needs.   

So those predicting drought, drastically reduced snowpack, and enhanced wildfires over the region will have a lot of the proverbial egg on their face next summer.  

So what exactly does a very strong El Niño do to the larger-scale atmospheric circulation around here?     I am a weather scientist and am curious!

Below is the average of the upper-level heights at 500 hPa (think pressure at 18,000 ft), showing the difference from normal for October through March of a very strong El Niño year.  Purple is much lower than normal heights/pressure (a strong trough).

Mama mia!   A HUGE intense low-pressure area over the north Pacific!

Let's look at the local implications of this intense pattern by examining the difference from normal in the winds around 5000 ft for such a very strong El Nino year (below).    

There are greatly enhanced winds from the southwest offshore, bringing in lots of moisture into the West Coast.  That means more precipitation. NO DROUGHT.

To demonstrate this, below is the difference in precipitation from normal for such very strong El Niño years.   A lot more precipitation over the West Coast, with the greatest increase over northern CA and southern Oregon.   

Our region will be a bit warmer than normal, but the additional moisture should result in near-normal snowpack in the mountains above 3500 ft.  Lots of water to fill reservoirs and moisten the soils.

No problem.

Announcement

I will hold a special online Zoom session at 10 AM on Sunday for Patreon supporters. I plan to talk about the winter forecast and answer your questions!