2013 could become a disastrous fire season in the Far West

The last five days of April and the first five days of May saw a record number of wildfires blacken areas of the parched Far West.

Thousands of acres in Southern California went 'up in smoke' during the 10-day period before calmer winds and cooling rains helped weary firefighters bring most of the blazes under control. However, 15 western states remained in moderate to extreme drought conditions.

On Saturday, May 4, my brother Craig's place in La Pine, Ore., west of Bend, where my 97-year-old mother lives, for a time was literally surrounded by flames. Several dozen people were evacuated. Fortunately, no homes were lost. There were no injuries.

Other relatives in Northern California, some 200 miles northeast of San Francisco, likewise reported a rather large wildfire near Butte Meadows in Tehama County on Saturday, May 4.

Much of California has had an extremely dry winter and early spring. The snowpack in the southern Sierra Nevada Mountains was only a puny 17 percent of normal in late April. Due to the lack of critical snowmelt waters, irrigation supplies to farmers in the Central Valley of the Golden State will likely be cut by at least 35 percent this summer, bad news indeed for the region's farmers and ranchers.

The 'oddest' part of the recent wildfires in Southern California was the fact that the dreaded 'Santa Ana Winds' arrived in April and May rather than the normal October and November time periods.

This could mean that the 2013 fire season, particularly in the parched Far West, could eventually become one of the worst seasons on record, possibly exceeding the disastrous fire seasons of 1910, 1961, 1970, 1971, 1993 and 2003, amongst other years.

To answer a subscriber's question, 'Santa Ana Winds' are named after the Santa Ana Mountains to the east of Los Angeles.

Warm, dry gusty winds blow down through the canyons into the valleys of Southern California. The 'Witch's Wind' is just one of the several nicknames for the wild Santa Anas that likewise produce extremely low humidity levels.

These potentially dangerous and often deadly winds that spawn huge wildfires that can consume thousands of homes, are most common in the mid to late fall months, but can occur, as we recently witnessed, in the early to mid spring periods. Summer Santa Anas are extremely 'rare' due to a large semi-stationary high pressure area in the Eastern Pacific Ocean called the 'Pacific High.'

In the fall season, however, just prior to the normal arrival of the winter rains, there is often a strong high pressure area situated over the Great Basin Area in Nevada and Utah and much lower barometric pressures offshore west of Los Angeles. This forces the air to flow from northeast to southwest through Southern California. Mother Nature "abhors a vacuum" and therefore tries to quickly fill the huge hole in the atmosphere, thus the powerful, dry winds that sometimes approach speeds greater than 100 miles per hour in the funneled areas near the mouths of the canyons.

During one extremely strong Santa Ana event in December of 1997, one station in Pine Valley, Calif., along Interstate 8, recorded a wind gust of 115 miles per hour, some 41 miles per hour above hurricane force. Several huge trucks were blown off the road. Wildfires destroyed hundreds of homes.

We are praying that 2013 will not live in WILDFIRE INFAMY. But, once again, only time will tell.

NORTH IDAHO WEATHER REVIEW AND LONG-RANGE OUTLOOKS

What a difference a year makes, weatherwise and otherwise, in this cycle of WIDE 'EXTREMES.'

Last spring was the coolest and wettest such period on record since at least 1895 across North Idaho and much of the rest of the so-called Inland Empire.

By extreme contrast, the first 10 days of May 2013 were bone dry with Julylike highs in the mid to upper 80s. One station last Tuesday in eastern Washington observed a May 7 record maximum reading of 91 degrees. It was 87 degrees at Fernan Lake, 86 degrees in Hayden and 85 degrees in Coeur d'Alene and Post Falls. Only 1949 and 1966 had a warmer first third of the month of May. No other year since 1895 was drier. We didn't even see a drop of rain through May 10. We set a record for the number of hours with sunshine during May 1-10 with an incredible 126 hours. That compared to just 143 hours of sunshine in May 2012 during the entire month.

Believe it or not, I'm already getting people 'crying for rain' or at least cooler temperatures. One woman exclaimed, "Cliff, it's been too hot to sleep at night."

Talk about wide weather 'extremes,' it was less than two weeks ago that we saw measurable snows and hard freezes in our part of the country.

Longer-term, as of this Friday, May 10 writing, we were expecting some scattered showers and thunderstorms as well as cooler, more seasonable temperatures to break this extended early season heat wave by early this week, May 13-14.

The mid May through mid June 30-day period should be one of 'sun and showers' with near to slightly above normal temperatures across the region. The summer of 2013 still looks dry and warm to hot. I'll have more details next week.

Cliff Harris is a climatologist who writes a weekly column for The Press. His opinions are his own. Email sfharris@roadrunner.com