California Fires Loom Again. So Do Power Outages

Believe it or not, firefighters were able to save all of these homes
in Pacific Palisades, California during  a brush fire Monday.
Image from ABC 7

It's the peak of the California fire season, and they're not getting a break. Not this week.

Intense Santa Ana winds are forecast to whip up today and especially tomorrow and Friday,  causing a big risk of explosive brush fires that can rip through neighborhoods in an instant.

There was already one close call Monday, when a fire in Pacific Palisades burned just feet from multi-million dollar hilltop mansions. Three homes burned in another fire in San Bernadino, reports the Los Angeles Times.

Pacific Gas & Electric once again plans to cut power to prevent falling power lines for arcing and causing fires. This of course is controversial.  On the one hand, it's preventing fires. On the other hand spending a couple days at least without power and inconvenient and very expensive for businesses.  

Earlier this month, PG&E cut power to 800,000 homes and businesses in an effort to prevent fires. This time, they're anticipating 200,000 power cuts, but that figure could change.  This is turning into an ugly new normal out there in California, isn't it?

During the last set of outages, there were still damaging wildfires, so it's hard to tell if the power outages helped or not.  One of the worst fires was caused by a garbage truck driver dumping burning trash on dry terrain, causing a fire that destroyed dozens of buildings.

Plus, as NPR points out, the last PG&E outage was not handled well. Their website crashed, call centers were overloaded and outage maps were not accurate.  We'll have to see how things go this week.

And no more burning garbage trucks, please.

Here's a video of the fire in Pacific Palisades on Monday. You can see how close the houses came to burning down. Firefighters were able to beat back the flames at the last second in some cases:

Off The Rails Weather Update: Big CA Power Outages, Plains Blizzard, Northeast Blast

A high risk of wildfires in California today has prompted
the state's biggest utility to cut power to large areas
so that winds don't create arcing power lines that
would set dangerous fires. 

This is another one of those weeks when big sections of the United States are getting off-the-rails weather.

The Upper Plains and parts of the Rockies are set up for a big winter storm and single digit temperatures (in October!) Coastal New England and parts of the Middle Atlantic States are gearing up for a big hit by an odd, really strong ocean storm. And California is set for huge power failures. The utilities are shutting off the juice to prevent arcing power lines and wildfires as winds there pick up.  

Once again, we here in Vermont are pretty much escaping all this drama, as we will be blessed with seasonable temperatures, some sun, especially north and very little rain.

Let's start with California:

Pacific Gas and Electric has been blamed for some devastating, deadly wildfires in California in recent years, as the Weather Channel reports. This includes the extreme fire that pretty much leveled the town of Paradise, California and killed 86 people last year.

In parts of northern and central California, extremely critical fire weather conditions are forecast later today, according to NOAA's Storm Prediction Center Fire Weather Outlook. 

Winds could gust as high as 60 mph, and relative humidities are forecast to drop into the single digits. If a power line snaps in the wind and arcs and sparks, you have another big wildfire on your hands.

PG&E plans to cut power to as many as 800,000 homes and businesses in the fire risk region, and some of these outages might last for days. If there's no juice flowing in the lines and they snap in the wind, nothing bad will happen, goes the logic.

The danger of wildfires will continue Thursday in northern and central California, and ramp up in southern California, too. leading to the risk of more precautionary power outages.

PLAINS SNOW/COLD

Heavy, wet snow caused a lot of tree damage in Spokane, Washington
overnight. Photo by Liz Kishimoto/Spokesman-Review

As expected that winter storm is cranking up in the Rocky Mountains and northern Plains.  Parts of North Dakota could see close to two feet of snow out of this, which is incredible for mid-October.

A huge area of the nation, especially for October, is under winter storm warnings and watches. These extend from western Montana to northwest Minnesota and south to the northwestern corner of Nebraska.

The storm's cold front will be impressive as it crosses the Plains and upper Midwest.  I can foresee temperatures dropping by 20 or 30 degrees in an hour or so in some places.

Denver, Colorado won't get much snow out of this. But after 80 degree temperatures today, readings could be as low as 10 degrees Thursday night. But by Saturday, the temperature in Denver should pop back up to the low 60s.  Talk about whiplash weather!

The storm extended west as far as Spokane, Washington, where more than 3 inches of wet, heavy snow falling on trees still holding on to their leaves caused lots of power failures.

The snowstorm is also socking the southern Plains of Canada as well. In all areas hit by this storm, there are going to be a lot of livestock and crop losses.

NEW ENGLAND STORM

Thank goodness this long-anticipated ocean storm won't hug the coast but stay offshore. Otherwise, it would be a disastrous storm.

Even so, with the soon-to-be-huge, intense storm spinning out there offshore, it's destined to cause a lot of headaches, especially on Cape Cod and the Islands, parts of Long Island and maybe coastal New Jersey, too.

They've already shut down the ferry to Block Island, Rhode Island in anticipation of gale force winds and high seas.

Up to eight inches of rain might fall on southeastern Massachusetts, where flood watches, coastal flood watches and high wind warnings are in effect.