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    • With wildfires raging in the Northeast, is a drought breaker in sight?
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    With wildfires raging in the Northeast, is a drought breaker in sight?

    Vaseline Posted on

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    The historic drought that has engulfed a swath of the country from Virginia to New England for weeks, with red-flag wildfire warnings showing no signs of easing soon — and flooding may be needed to end the weather pattern.

    Adam Douty, a senior meteorologist at AccuWeather, says some of the hardest-hit areas could need 12 inches or more of rain to end the dry spell. No such weather pattern is visible, he said.

    “There is an old saying that drought ends in floods,” Douty told USA TODAY. “Hopefully that won’t be the case here, but it will take a lot of rain.”

    Ideally, the drought will be ended by a damp, gloomy weather pattern lasting two weeks or more, with storms rolling in one after the other. That would mark a big change in cities like Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and Trenton, New Jersey, where records were broken for several days without significant rain before showers hit the region on Sunday.

    “Philadelphia lasted 42 days; the old record was 29 days,” Douty said. “They not only broke the record, they shattered it.”

    Wildfires burning from coast to coast: Red flag warnings have been issued for the Northeast

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

    Douty blamed a strong high-pressure system that lasted for weeks and crushed the occasional storm systems that tried to move over from Canada. The dry atmosphere and dry soil combine to suppress weak weather systems that try to break through, Douty said. There appears to be no blame for a phenomenon like El Niño or La Niña, or even climate change, he said.

    “I guess this is more of a short-term phenomenon,” he said. “The pattern will change and in a month’s time everyone will be complaining that it rains every day.

    The storm system hit many areas on Sunday with rainfall ranging from 0.10 to 1/2 inch. Fire officials consider 0.10 inches a “wetting rain,” the minimum needed to fight spreading wildfires. Firefighting efforts were desperately needed in parts of New York and New Jersey, where at least 10 wildfires have burned in parched forests and lawns.

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

    Southern California fire burns homes: ‘We have suffered great damage’

    Red flag warnings from the National Weather Service mean that a combination of warm temperatures, very low humidity and high winds are expected to increase the risk of fire danger. The warnings come with strict criteria: relative humidity of 15% or less and wind gusts of 40 km per hour or more for three hours over a twelve-hour period.

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

    The group’s recommendations include not driving on dry grass, properly extinguishing outdoor fires and never leaving them unattended. Soak ash and charcoal in water and throw them in a metal tin. Sometimes they can reignite days after a fire or barbecue has gone out. And report unattended outdoor fires to 911 immediately.

    A milestone in 2024: 2024 will ‘almost certainly’ be the warmest on record

    Since the beginning of this year, climate scientists have been saying that 2024 would probably be the warmest year on record. Ten months later, it is now “almost certain,” the Copernicus Climate Change Service has announced. This year will almost certainly 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. That’s a target that world leaders and climate scientists had hoped would remain below.

    Average temperatures for the next two months this year would have to be close to temperatures in the pre-industrial period to avoid being the warmest on record, the climate service said. The previous warmest year on record was last year.

    − Dinah Voyles Pulver

    Vaseline
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