It’s official: Buckle up.
Despite the recent snow, the National Weather Service says Arizona will face a mostly normal February, a hot, dry spring and an early, scary fire season.
The widespread snow did dramatically reduce the moisture of the fuels in the forest. Before the storm, we were flirting with an all-time record “energy release component (ERC)” when it comes to the moisture content of plants and downed wood on the forest floor. Now as the snowfall melts, fuels are much wetter than normal for this time of the year.
But that’s about it for the good news.
The forecast gives about equal odds February will be either drier and hotter than normal or cooler and wetter than normal. Translation — bet on normal rain and cold for the next three weeks.
After that, things go south.
The odds are we’ll have “warmer and drier average conditions” February through April.
And that leads to another sweating-bullets fire season, with higher than normal temperatures and probably normal rainfall. Unfortunately, in May and June normal amounts to zilch. Even in a normal year, Payson gets a total of about an inch of rain for those two months combined.
That adds up to odds of a “significant wildland fire outlook” and a continuation of the current exceptional drought over much of the state.
The above-normal risk of wildfire will start in the lower elevations in April and move up into Rim Country in May and on into the White Mountains in June.
At that point, we’ll have to hope the monsoon shows up early and wet, as opposed to last year’s “nonsoon.” Unfortunately, a lot of the climate models based on the steady rise in average global temperatures suggest the monsoon will likely grow ever more fickle in Arizona. That means we’ll have an increase in years with hardly any monsoon as well as years with unusually violent storms. Worst of all will be relatively dry years that nonetheless bring a lot of dry lightning storms — which set fires without dampening the fuels.
What we really need is an entire month of big storms heading into spring — enough to at least temporarily banish drought all across the state. That’s what we got last year.
This year — don’t hold your breath.
Despite the recent storm, the entire state remains in drought condition. Southern Gila County’s in “exceptional” drought and northern Gila County is in “extreme” drought.
The entire state’s in drought right now, compared to just 30% at the same time last year, when we were just transitioning from a wet winter to a bone-dry spring and summer.
We’re currently in record territory, as measured by how much of the state remains in drought at this point in the winter. Conditions right now dwarf the worst fire seasons on record, including the years that spawned the Wallow, the Schultz, the Yarnell Hill and the Rodeo-Chediski. The closest comparisons would be the Tinder Fire in 2018 and the Bush Fire last year. Last year coming off a much wetter winter, Arizona essentially tied the all-time record for acres burned — nearly 1 million.
So don’t put off weeding, clearing brush from around the house, keeping roofs and gutters cleared of leaves and pine needles and packing up that emergency evacuation box.
Fortunately, we’ve got a little time yet before the scary months — with more or less normal rain and temperatures in February.
Normally, Payson gets 2.3 inches of rain in February, which includes an average of six inches of snow. Normally, the average high temperature is 56 degrees and the average low temperature is 28 degrees.
As of late last week, some streams flowing out of the White Mountains and off the Rim were bolstered by the melting snow while others remain below normal. Salt River at Roosevelt was running at just 46% of normal and the Verde River at 86% of normal. However, Tonto Creek was running at 146% of normal, according to the Salt River Project’s daily water report.
Fortunately, Roosevelt Lake remained 82% full, with the downstream reservoirs on the Salt River more than 90% full. The C.C. Cragin Reservoir at midweek was just 20% full, which does not bode well for water deliveries to Payson this spring and summer.
February 09, 2021 at 07:00PM
https://www.paysonroundup.com/catastrophe_a_forest_in_flames/weather-service-predicts-hot-dry-months-ahead/article_2bccb850-f3a6-525c-a291-28cc440e7a5c.html
Weather Service predicts hot, dry months ahead | Catastrophe A Forest In Flames | paysonroundup.com - Payson Roundup
https://news.google.com/search?q=dry&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en
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