Enhanced Fire Danger

We have yet to ‘officially' receive any rain or snow so far this month and it has been more than a month now since we had any moisture of significance for many locations. In fact, if it wasn't for the 1.5" or so of rain that fell on Nov 12, we would really be hurting for moisture. Notice the 30 day rainfall map on the right. Before that, you have to go back to Oct 19 for any moisture of significance for most of us. Bottom line is, we are dry and the current weather pattern will not do much to change that.

This dryness together with the dormant vegetation together with increasing southerly winds over the next couple of days all adds up to an increasing fire danger; particularly on Monday when the winds will be the strongest and the temperature the warmest. Our next chance of any precipitation at all is a slight chance of rain late Thursday/Thursday night/or early Friday. That particular system could turn out to be a little wetter than currently projected, but for much of this cool season the systems have not been able to tap into any significant moisture till they are east of us and that looks to be the case with this next one as well.

So, despite a series of fronts coming our way during the week leading up to Christmas, it looks like a fairly quiet week. Current timing suggests a stronger cool front will arrive by early Friday morning and the brisk northerly winds behind it will produce temperatures near or a bit below normal for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. All current guidance also suggests that it will be dry.

So, for those of you hoping for another ‘White Christmas', it would require a major change in the current weather pattern for that to happen and that is not at all likely.

In the meantime, stay tuned and check back for updates.

Dick Faurot