As Northeast wildfires rage, is a drought-buster in sight?

On November 13, 2024By Littum

The historic drought that has for weeks inundated parts of the nation from Virginia through New England with red flag warnings shows no signs of abating anytime soon — and it may take flooding to end the weather pattern.

Adam Douty, a senior meteorologist at AccuWeather, says some of the hardest hit areas could require 7 inches or more of rain to end the dry spell. No such weather pattern is in sight, he said.

“There’s an old saying that droughts end in floods,” Douty told USA TODAY. “Hopefully that’s not the case here, but it’s going to take a lot of rain.”

Ideally, the drought will be ended by a wet, dreary weather pattern of two weeks or more with storms rolling in behind each other. That would represent a big change in cities like Philadelphia, Washington, DC and Trenton, New Jersey, where records were broken for the number of days without significant rain before showers reached the region on Sunday.

“Philadelphia went 42 days; the old record was 29 days,” Douty said. “They didn’t just break the record, they smashed it.”

The extraordinary weather system brought wildfires to New York City parks and a haze that hung over much of the city for days. A system could bring rain to some areas Thursday, but the next week shows no signs of the kind of weather needed to snap the dry spell, Douty said.

Douty blamed a strong high-pressure system that lingered for weeks and has crushed the occasional storm systems that try to sweep down from Canada. The dry atmosphere and dry soil combine to suffocate weak weather systems that try to break through, Douty said. There doesn’t seem to be any phenomenon like El Niño or La Niña or even climate change to blame, he said.

“This, I would assume, is more of a short-term phenomenon,” he said. “The pattern will reverse and a month from now everyone will be complaining that it rains every day.

The storm system Sunday hit many areas with 0.10 to half an inch of rain. Firefighters consider 0.10 inches to be a “drenching rain,” the minimum needed to combat the spread of wildfires. The suppression was desperately needed in parts of New York and New Jersey, where at least 10 wildfires have burned across parched forest and grassy areas.

“The streak of consecutive days without measurable precipitation is finally over!” The National Weather Service in Mount Holly reported in a social media post. “This will NOT have any meaningful impact on the drought, but should temporarily alleviate the extreme fire danger.”

Red flag warnings issued by the National Weather Service mean a combination of warm temperatures, very low humidity and strong winds are expected to increase the risk of fire hazards. The warnings come with strict criteria – relative humidity of 15% or less and wind gusts of 25km/h or more for three hours over a 12-hour period.

The International Association of Fire Chiefs warns that during a red flag warning residents should follow local fire department guidance and maintain a “heightened awareness” of anything that could generate a spark or flame.

The group’s recommendations include not driving on dry grass, extinguishing outdoor fires properly and never leaving them unattended. Soak ashes and charcoal in water and dispose of them in a metal container – they can sometimes resume days after a fire or barbecue is extinguished. And report unattended outdoor fires to 911 immediately.

Since the beginning of this year, climate scientists have said that 2024 was likely to be the hottest year on record. Ten months on, it is now “largely certain,” the Copernicus Climate Change Service has announced. This year is also virtually certain to be the first full year in which global average temperatures were at least 2.7 degrees above pre-industrial levels, said Samantha Burgess, deputy director of the Climate Change Service. It is a goal for world leaders and climate scientists had hoped to stay under.

Average temperatures for the next two months would need to nearly match pre-industrial temperatures for this year not to be the hottest on record, the climate service said. The previous warmest year on record was last year.

− Dinah Voyle’s Powder