California Wildfires, Unbelievably For December, Still Raging. Baked Alaska, Too

A home burns in northern San Diego County, California
earlier this week as flames continue to spread through
the region. In December! 

The wildfires this month in California aren't at the top of the headlines as much anymore, but they are still raging, which is incredible for December, which is supposed to be well within the state's rainy season.

Judging from the southern California weather forecasts for the next few days, the fires might leap back into homes, and the front pages of newspapers and home pages of news web sites.

It remains bone dry in Southern California. No rain is in sight, at least until after Christmas. Offshore winds blowing in from the east are keeping the relative humidity extremely low. And the Santa Ana winds are resurgent, blowing strong again today. They'll continue to gust off and on through Saturday, and could pick up to become very, very dangerous again on Sunday.

The Thomas Fire, the one that burned hundreds of homes in and around Ventura, California once it started on December 4 continues to burn with no end in sight.  It is 30 percent contained, but who knows if it will break fire lines in this weather? Plus, there's a high risk that new fires could break out, even if a fire in northern San Diego County that destroyed 157 homes is largely contained. So is the one in BelAir.

As Reuters reports, the Thomas Fire is California's fifth largest wildfire on record. It has destroyed more than 700 homes, traveled 27 miles and charred 371 square miles, an area larger than New York City. The fire continues to spread, and belch choking smoke through the region. That continues to raise health concerns.

That we are still talking about dangerous wildfire conditions across southern California heading into Christmas is just incredible. Santa Ana winds do still blow fairly frequently in this region in December and even January, but by now, it has normally rained so much that the winds don't spark any major fires. At this time of year, southern Californians should be worried about heavy rains and mudslides, not wildfires.

Not this time.

This wildfire bizarro world in California is not entirely caused by climate change, but climate change has its fingerprints all over the situation. We're in a La Nina weather pattern, which does favor dryness in the Southwest. La Ninas come and go with or without climate change, so there's that.

People also keep building more and more houses in areas that are fire prone, so as long as that trend continues, wildfires will get more and more destructive, with or without climate change.

But the persistence of the dryness and accompanying intense warmth for this time of year is a hallmark of climate change. As the Los Angeles Times reports, California Governor Jerry Brown said climate change has brought his state into a new normal, one in which out of season wildfires like the current ones are becoming more common. He says the situation will worsen, saying that climate change has us "on the road to hell."

Southern California isn't the only place that has gotten weird, unprecedented December wildfires. A wildfire earlier this week in and near Custer State Park, not far from Rapid City, South Dakota, forced evacuations.

A bit odd for a northern state like South Dakota in December, don't you think?

Then let's look at Alaska recently. Nope, no wildfires going on there at the moment. But Anchorage earlier this week had four consecutive days with highs of 45 degrees or more, the first time that's happened in December. In the southeastern Alaska town of Sitka, the overnight low temperture was 53 degrees on December 7. That was one degree warmer than the record high temperature for the date.

Each day since December 3 in normally ultra frigid Fairbanks, Alaska has been at least 18 degrees above normal. November in Barrow, on the northern tip of Alaska, was a whopping 16.4 degrees warmer than normal, by far a record. There's still open water on the northwest coast of Alaska. It should have been locked in frozen well before now.

A weather pattern that makes winter weather unusually warm in Alaska usually means frigid weather in the eastern United States, including here in Vermont. Yes, it's been cold the past couple of days, with temperatures around zero this morning.

However, zero degrees in a Vermont December is nothing unusual. And overall temperatures so far this December are so far running near normal. The weather pattern since the beginning of the month should have kept us well below normal.

This blog post turned into a climate change rant, I get it. But I think it's something we all must get off our chests now and then. It's that important.