Wildfires and El Nino

It’s turning out to be another tough fire season in Canada. As of late last week, there were about 900 fires burning across Canada with around 110 of them “out of control.” Heavy smoke from these wildfires have been blanketing a large region of the U.S., especially in the Midwest and Northeast. Last Thursday, Detroit, Mich., reported the worst air quality of any city in the world with a reading of about 600. That is twice the “hazardous” level according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Other major cities, such as Chicago and New York were reporting very unhealthy air from the smoky conditions.

As of the middle of July, the Canadian government is reporting that approximately 4.7 million acres have been burned this year. According to the Government of Canada, the worst fire season was in 2023. During that season, over 39.5 million acres were burned as out of control wildfires in Canada’s eastern province of Quebec sent huge clouds of smoke and haze southward into the northeastern U.S., parts of the Midwest and regions as far south as the Mid-Atlantic states.

In 2023, the smoke from the Canadian fires was so thick that the skyline of New York City was completely orange in color. Major sporting events were either postponed or cancelled, and schools were closed across parts of the Northeast. Major airlines also delayed flights due to the heavy smoke. Smoke particles from those blazes were even reported across Greenland, Iceland, and parts of western Europe.

Last year was the second worst fire season in Canada as about 22 million acres were burned. Officials are still not anticipating record-breaking years like 2023 and 2025 for wildfires this year, but are forecasting above average conditions, especially in British Columbia and the Northwest Territories as well as Alberta.

According to the National Interagency Fire Center, as of the weekend, there were 73 large fires in the U.S. The highest number with wildfires is Oregon with 28. There are eight in Washington and four in Idaho. Since Jan. 1, there have been over 40,000 wildfires across the country that have burned over 3.8 million acres. Last year at this time, there were over 38,000 fires that consumed close to 2.8 million acres.

One of the worst days for air quality in the Northwest was in 2017. Air quality in the region was not only the worst in the country on that date, but perhaps the worst in history here in Coeur d’Alene. On Labor Day, Sept. 4, air quality levels hit an unbelievable 303, which in in the “hazardous” category. Over the last 5 years, the Inland Northwest has averaged about 250 days with good air quality.

Wildfires in the western portions of the country are a big concern over at least the next several months. The latest U.S. Drought Monitor continues to show dry to extreme drought conditions over most of the West with the Spokane and Coeur d’Alene region still reporting severe drought. In June, only 0.25 inches of rain fell at Cliff Harris’s station in Coeur d’Alene, compared to a normal of 1.93 inches.

Through the middle of July, only 0.01 inches of precipitation has been observed. The average rainfall for this month is 0.92 inches. Some locations, such as Hayden and Rathdrum, have received more precipitation over the last six weeks, but totals are still well below normal. There is the chance of scattered showers or a thunderstorm toward the end of the week and again around the very end of the month, but it looks like July will be another month with below average rainfall across much of the Inland Northwest.

The drier than normal weather pattern across the region is expected to continue at least into August with an increasing chance of more significant rainfall by September. We’ve been talking about the new El Nino in the waters of the south-central Pacific Ocean along the Equatorial regions. The recent rapid warming of sea-surface temperatures may already be influencing weather patterns as catastrophic flooding has been reported across parts of Texas. According to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, the agency that carefully watches the change in sea-surface temperatures, this El Nino may intensify further into one of the strongest, if not the strongest, in recorded history. If El Nino does indeed become very strong, then forecasters are stating that the ocean heating may help lead to our planet’s hottest year ever recorded either this year or in 2027.

As I’ve mentioned in previous articles, much of the moisture that falls during the winter season is likely to be in the form of rain rather than snow in the Coeur d’Alene and Spokane area. In fact, the air masses that invade our region are likely to be warmer as they originate more from a west to south-westerly direction. Therefore, snowfall totals across the Inland Northwest for the 2026-27 season are expected to be much lower than average.

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Contact Randy Mann at [email protected].