Nearly A Month Until Summer, And Australia's Fire Season Is Well Under Way

[hatrack]

The warmest winter on record, followed by an unusually warm and dry spring. Hundreds of fires along Australia’s east coast, including one that razed 53 homes in Queensland. And last week, on the west coast, a raging blaze just over a dozen miles from the Perth city center was fueled by an unseasonably early heat wave and strong winds. By Sunday, firefighters had contained the Perth fire, which had burned through about 4,500 acres, destroyed 18 homes and forced dozens of people to evacuate.

It is not yet summer, but Australia’s fire season is well underway, in the latest example of how climate change is altering the rhythms of life across the Earth. Stoked by the El Niño weather pattern, it is the first dry and hot year since the summer of 2019-2020. It is expected to be the worst fire season since that period, when nearly 500 people died from direct fire exposure and smoke inhalation, and tens of thousands of acres were charred. “We’re still at the very beginning of the fire season, and already we’ve had hundreds of fires since early October,” Western Australia’s emergency services minister, Stephen Dawson, said on Friday.

Many experts foresee a difficult summer. “All of the diagnostics are telling us that we’re moving into dangerous terrain,” said David Bowman, a professor of pyrogeography and fire science at the University of Tasmania. Current conditions more closely resemble a late-summer month like February, he said.

The authorities and experts do not believe that this summer will be as bad as 2019-2020, because it is being preceded by years of rain and floods rather than drought. And they say the country is better prepared, with improved coordination between agencies and more resources for firefighters. Communities devastated that summer have spent years equipping themselves. But what level of preparation is enough when climate change is driving more intense and unpredictable extreme weather events? Scientists say that everyone, from the authorities to everyday people, is struggling to answer this question.

EDIT

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/26/world/australia/fire-season-bad.html

[2naSalit]

1. Looks like winter in...

Montana is on pause. This past week, for second time ever, the major ski festival in West Yellowstone was canceled due to no snow, even at 8,000ft. Used to be the first ski fest of the year, lasted all week and was a major revenue generator for the season.

From looking at a weather forecast for December we are looking to have vacillating cold and warm spells with very little precip. Our winters have been shifting to later and later dates. We now get the majority of our snow after early January into May. Used to be from October to May/June.