A turn to wet weather has blunted an already moderate wildfire season in California but some risk remains as changing climate has made a rainy fall no guarantee of a stormy winter.
Last year, some 3,900 square miles burned in California and more than 3,800 structures were lost or damaged. In 2020, more than 6,700 square miles burned and more than 11,000 structures were destroyed.
So far this year, with just over 565 square miles burned and 876 buildings destroyed or damaged, California has avoided a repeat of the massive scale of conflagrations seen in recent years. Whether or not beneficial storms will help keep that trend going remains to be seen, but climate variations are worrisome.
Last year, a powerful atmospheric river dumped huge amounts of rain on California in October and a wet stretch in December left parts of the Sierra Nevada buried in snow. Then, the state experienced its driest January through April on record. In addition to that dramatic variability, forecasts point to the persistence of the La Nina ocean cooling phenomenon in the Pacific that tends to indicate a dry winter in California.“Twenty years ago I would have said this was a season-ending event — that's kind of the terminology we use when you get your first storm and you're counting on getting more successive storms every other week or so after that — but in today's climate I really can't say that anymore,” he said.
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