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:

Strong, Textbook Middle Of The Nation Storm Takes Shape

Already lots of weather alerts on the National Weather
Service map. That broad area of red, pink and blue
are blizzard and winter storm warnings, and various
other winter watches and advisories. Pink and orange
around Texas are wind and fire alerts. 

I hesitate to use the word "textbook" and "typical" to describe the storm taking shape now in the middle of the country, given how nasty and locally extreme the weather is going to get in some places.  

Maybe "classic" is the term for this, because of the types and locations of the rough weather this storm is about to cause.

Also, us weather geeks are going to love the satellite and other images of this storm as it develops. I bet this will be a great storm to use as perfect example in future meteorology classes.

To the north of the storm's expected path, from eastern Colorado, northwestern Kansas, much of Nebraska, southern and eastern South Dakota, northwest Iowa and southern Minnesota, blizzard warnings are up. 

Most of this area can expect around a foot of snow, with strong north to northeast winds. Travel is NOT recommended in this broad area today and tomorrow.

To the south of the storm - again this is a classic spot for this type of storm - severe weather is likely in parts of northeast Texas, Arkansas and northwest Louisiana. It looks like forecasters don't think this will be the most extensive, most severe outbreak ever.

But there is a definitely a risk in this area of strong, damaging winds and maybe a tornado or two. The fun part about this is the same area under the warm, humid storm risk zone just had record cold and some snow a few days ago. Definitely some weather whiplash going on there.

Speaking of severe weather, here's a positive factoid for once after a year of weather disasters. The nation has gone 249 consecutive days without anybody dying in a tornado. That's the longest stretch of no tornado fatalities on record. Let's hope that if any tornadoes touch down today, they don't hurt anybody.

To the southwest of the storm system - again this is typical with this type of storm - strong, dry winds will develop today in the western half of Texas, eastern New Mexico and parts of Oklahoma.

It hasn't rained or snowed much at all in this area so it's really dry. There's a critical risk of rangeland wildfires today in the area I've outlined. I'm glad most of this area is relatively sparsely populated, because I think this wildfire risk is the most dangerous of all the hazards being created by this storm  - including the blizzard and the severe weather I've already outlined.

This storm will inevitably affect us here in Vermont. Expect mixed precipitation Monday night, so the roads will get nasty overnight, especially in eastern Vermont, northern New Hampshire and the St. Lawrence Valley of New York.

Precipitation will change over to rain Tuesday. Forecasters are still watching the numerous ice jams in the region. The rain and thawing could shift these ice jams, or add water to the rivers to make flooding behind the ice jams worse. It's sometbing to pay attention to, that's for sure.

New England To Turn VERY Wet; Critical Fire Danger Again In California

Lots of rain forecast for the East this week. Bright red
areas indicate an expected three inches of rain
or more over the next seven days.

The long, incredible stretch of dry, sunny and unseasonably warm weather is about to end here in the Northeast, in favor of a turn toward very, very wet weather.

Meanwhile, southern California is bracing for what could be more destructive wildfires.

I'll start with our local situation here in New England, though it's not nearly as dangerous as the one in California.

HEAVY RAIN COMING

The approaching storm system is really just a slow moving, wiggly cold front with waves of relatively weak low pressure riding north along it.

But this weather front is scooping up tons and tons of tropical moisture, so it looks like it will rain quite hard at times, especially Tuesday night and Wednesday. This fire hose of moisture and heavier rain will work its way slowly eastward across the region during this time.

Severe thunderstorms and even a few tornadoes could accompany this mess of a storm. The threat of severe storms and a couple of tornadoes today is down in the Carolinas and Virginia. On Tuesday, the threat of severe thunderstorms runs through eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York's Hudson Valley and even into Vermont.

South of Vermont probably south of Albany, there might even be a tornado or two on Tuesday. Up  here in Vermont, the (relatively low) threat from severe storms is strong, damaging winds.

And lots of rain.

Some areas of New England, including south and southeastern facing slopes in Vermont's Green Mountains, could get three or more inches of rain out of this.

Often, that much rain raises the possibility of at least minor flooding, but not this time. It's been so dry the rivers should be able to handle the precipitation just fine. We need the rain.

The exception to the "no flood" forecast is some urban areas. It was already getting windy early Monday morning in the Champlain Valley, and it will get even windier as the rain approaches Tuesday.

That'll knock a lot of leaves off the trees, and the heavy rains will take even more foliage down. So I imagine there could be some areas of urban flooding as storm drains get clogged with leaves during the expected downpours.

On the bright side, it's gotten so dry that there's a fire danger in Vermont and other parts of the Northeast. The rain will end that risk.  Not so in California. No way.

CALIFORNIA FIRE RISK:

It's looking pretty scary in southern California today and tomorrow with a strong Santa Ana windstorm coming.

Santa Anas are hot, dry winds that blow from the northeast, from the deserts and blast into southern  California, especially in the vast developments in and around Los Angeles. The wind blows down the slopes of the mountains toward the coast.

That downward motion compresses the air, making it even hotter and drier. In this case, record high temperatures above 100 degrees are expected in the Los Angeles basin today and Tuesday. Relative humidities will drop into the single digits. Winds will gust past 50 mph in some areas. And it hasn't really rained since last spring. It's bone dry.

You can see why people are nervous. The tiniest little spark could cause a terrible conflagration. 

It's hard to get National Weather Service meteorologists to speak in dire language, but when things get extreme enough, they do. Here's part of a statement from the NWS office in Los Angeles.

"The duration, strength and widespread nature of this Santa Ana wind event combined with the extreme heat and very dry fuels will bring the most dangerous fire weather conditions that Southwest California has seen in the past few years. If fire ignition occurs, there will be the potential for ery rapid spread of wildfire with long range spotting and extreme fire behavior that could lead to a thret to life and property."

Great. Just what California needs. Another fire disaster.  Maybe we'll get lucky and avoid such a disaster. The nation doesn't need another calamity.

CAL fire had deployed additional firefighters to southern California, some from as far away as Australia, to get ready for any fires to break out. They're trying to stay on top of the situation, but it sounds like no matter how talented the fire crews, this one could get away from them.

Stay tuned.