An Extreme Lightning Event Started the Recent Northwest Wlidfires: Did Global Warming Play a Role?

On July 15/16, a massive lightning storm initiated several major wildfires east of the Cascade crest.

As shown below, this was one of the most extreme lightning events in Northwest history.

This story has escaped the notice of the media.   Furthermore, several media outlets (including KING-5 news and the NY Times) and podcasters/Youtube channels have claimed that Northwest lightning has increased over time due to climate change.  (see example below) 

Actual lightning data show that such claims are demonstrably false.

The data is clear: the major wildfires that occurred during the past month have little to do with climate change, but were associated with a very unusual "lightning storm" of extraordinary intensity.

As I will demonstrate below, there is no upward trend in Northwest lightning, which indicates that global warming is not a major driver of regional lightning frequency.

The Data

There are two major lightning networks that cover our region and beyond: the UW World Wide Lightning Location Network (WWLLN) and the Vaisala National Lightning Detection Network (NLDN).

I first asked UW Professor Robert Holzworth and Scientist Katrina Virts, who run the WWLLN network.

I was amazed to learn that WWLLN detected 5,440 strokes over the PNW on July 16, 2026--the most of any July day in the period of record (since 2013, after which the observing network was stable).

Lightning Strikes on July 15-17.

No wonder there were a lot of fire starts! 

 Many are concerned about global warming, so I asked the WWLLN folks to see a plot of lightning over time.  Katrina made a plot of the number of lightning days per month over the Pacific Northwest (below):

The lightning numbers are DECLINING.  And this is a period of substantial global warming. Global warming is NOT contributing to more lightning over our region!.

To get an independent check on these lightning numbers, UW Research Meteorologist Jeff Baars used a completely different lightning network (NLDN), which goes back until the late 1980s.

For this network, July 16 was the third greatest July lightning day since 2013. And examining a far longer period, we see that there is no increasing trend in regional lightning...in fact, a modest decline.

So what should you take away from all this?     

(1) The July 2026 lightning event was unusually extreme in terms of the number of lightning strikes, greatly increasing the number of fires.

(2)  There is no observational evidence that global warming/climate change is contributing to more lightning strikes (and thus wildfires) over the region.

The latter observational result suggests that some modeling studies, which suggested the opposite, are in error. Clearly, they possess some flaws in their methodology or approach.

The Smoke Situation is Rapidly Improving West of the Cascade Crest: But the Wind Threat to the East Remains

 As expected, air quality is rapidly improving west of the Cascades, with the transition complete by tomorrow morning.

You can see the changes in the west in the visible satellite imagery at 11 AM yesterday (top) and today (bottom)

The smoke plumes are now directed to the east, as the winds have reversed to westerly (from the west).

Low marine clouds have pushed up the coast and invaded coastal locations.    Air quality in the Portland area is hugely improved.

The air quality map at 11 AM (below) shows good conditions on the coast and NW Washington (green).   Moderate air quality over Puget Sound country, with some smoke trapped at low levels.  Such  low-level smoke will mix out today

There is s good air quality at high elevations in the Cascades, which are above the shallow smoke layer.

To illustrate the good conditions in the Cascades, below is the view at Paradise, on Mt. Rainier (about 5500 ft).   Nice blue sky!

The latest NOAA HRRR smoke forecasts predict a profound improvement in low-level smoke between today at 11 AM and tomorrow at 3 AM

And REALLY better by Saturday at 5 AM:

But there is a potential problem: much stronger winds on the eastern side of the Cascades: winds that could rev up some of the fires burning now (such as Little Giant).

The forecast winds for Friday evening could gust to over 39 knots over some areas of the eastern slopes of the Cascades.

And the predicted westerly winds in Ellensburg will increase substantially later tomorrow, according to the UW high-resolution modeling system:

Such winds will make fire management more difficult and promote fire motion to the east.

Need to watch this situation carefully.