2018 - Robert's botantical adventures in Northern California

[Robert]

SHOCKING NEWS from Northern California:


The town of Paradise in the Northern California foothills has been completely destroyed by a wildfire. I am sure you can find details on the Internet. At this time the fire is still completely out of control. Currently loss of life, property, etc. is not known.

The strong northerly winds that increased the magnitude of the wildfire are starting to abate; however the atmosphere is still extremely dry. K index values in our area are in the - 45 to - 33 range suggesting an extremely dry atmosphere at the 850 mb to 700 mb levels. Atmospheric PW (precipitable water) values are extremely low.

The reprieve from strong dry northerly winds may be short lived. At this time it appears there could be a return of windy conditions on Sunday. At this time it appears that the core of the strong winds will be to the north and east of our area, however this could easily shift between now and Sunday. Sunday will be windy. At this time the question is how strong the winds will become. At this time it appears that they will not be as strong as they were yesterday.

In the mean time we need rain and snow. There is no good news on this front during the next 7 days. On Tuesday a weak wave will past through our area. It appears that there will be enough PVA (Positive Vorticity Advection) to create some cloudiness. This is about it.

I do see changes. The MJO (Madden Julian Oscillation) is on the move again. What this might mean to our region is uncertain, however it does suggest change of some sort. In addition, the ENSO (El Nino Southern Oscillation) index has advanced to 0.4. Surface ocean temperatures in the east-central tropical Pacific are 1.0 C warmer than the long term average, however the atmospheric response that characterize El Nino have not become apparent. At this time there is an 80% chance that an El Nino will start late this year and continue into the spring. We will see what El Nino conditions bring.

[Maggi Young]

Terrible news- amongst news of other fires and more shooting in the USA.  Very sad times.

[Robert]

The situation in the town of Paradise is very grim. Not much is left of the town today, 9 November. The central downtown portion of Paradise has been burned to the ground. The streets are clogged with burned out cars, like a war zone, as people attempted to escape the flames. Tens of thousands are without a home or work as the fire destroyed many businesses. Many are missing or dead. I have lived in Northern California for 63 years and I have never seen anything like this, except the fire that burned through parts of Santa Rosa last year.

As of this evening the fire is only 5% contained and is burning through the town of Magalia. Tomorrow the winds look to be light, which will help firefighters. Unfortunately, it appears that another round of strong winds will arrive sometime late Saturday. The server with the 500 mb maps is down (maybe everyone is wanting to look), so I can only guess at the trajectory of the next round of winds and cold air advection. Looking at the latest water vapor satellite image, it still looks like the brunt of this event will travel to our northeast into the Great Basin region of the U.S.A. Still the northeast pressure gradient looks to be strong. Winds will still be very strong and this will not help firefighting efforts.



This is a scene of the Camp Fire smoke (burning Paradise) as seen from Peavine Ridge today, 9 November.

With all the recent and very destructive wildfires in Northern California, there has been much talk about the influence of global climate change on our environment. I tend to agree that climate change is impacting Northern California, however I also believe we are now paying a price for our past environmental indiscretions.

Many fail to remember the impact the California gold rush and early settlement had on our state’s environment (and the Silver boom in neighboring Nevada along the California border). During the gold rush (1849 into the 1900’s) huge tracts of oak and pine forest were cut for fuel and building timber. Sometimes tracts of forest were burned just to find potential gold veins. Human set wildfires often burned for months until they were extinguished by autumn rainfall. Thickets of highly flammable chaparral have now replaced many of the once forested tracts. The low elevation Ponderosa Pine forest are gone or much reduced. Thousands of acres of oak woodland were cut to become pastureland or cropland. Hydraulic mining stripped to soil from of thousands of acres of land. The scars from hydraulic mining are still very evident to this day. Often little or nothing grows on these sites.

Also, during this time period the California perennial bunch grass ecosystem was, more or less, completely destroyed and replaced by invasive annual grasses, such as Bromus (various species), Elymus caput-medusae, Medusa Head, Hordeum species, Avena species, etc. Unfortunately these species burn very easily and hot. Our native perennial bunch grasses stay somewhat green all year and do not burn as hot or easily.

For thousands of years after the last Ice Age, Native American people kept the land renewed and reduced of overgrowth with judicious use of fire. Since the genocide of the Native Californians this knowledge has been lost, or is not shared outside their community.

Past logging practices have highly impacted our forest. I am not apposed to logging, however many logging practices, past and present, are questionable. Some forestry practices, such as monoculture forestry, the widespread use of herbicides, etc. seems risky and destructive of a diverse balanced forest ecosystem. Years of fire suppression has led to the build up of fuel and dangerous overgrowth in our forest leading to catastrophic wildfires.

California’s past ecosystem patterns have been highly altered by past actions, especially during the gold rush, and the effects linger to this day. Many of our ecosystems have come to a new state of equilibrium, which in many cases is conducive of destructive wildfires. A great deal of wisdom and knowledge will be required to reestablish balance to the environment so destructive wildfires are less of a threat. Even more effort and compromise will be required to maintain an environment that is also inclusive of many more and diverse life forms.



I was very quiet in the mountains today. This is a scene of Wilson Meadow waiting for the winter snowfall to arrive.



Freeze up is starting to occur on Lyons Creek.



The ice is still thin, 7mm thick. Temperatures are running about 23 F (-5 C) at night in the Lyons Creek Basin. Tonight I except temperatures to be in the upper teens F.

[Robert]

Tuesday, 13 November 2018

A gloomy stratum of smoke persisted over our region today. The Camp Fire has left the towns of Paradise, and Magalia, California in ashes. 42 are known dead, and hundreds are still missing. Over 6,500 homes and business have burned to the ground. The fire destroyed much of the city infrastructure, water, power, sewer, and telephone. There are no longer any city services or public service. Banks, grocery stores, petro stations, hospitals, fire departments, police, and all the other services we think of being always available are gone or have been seriously disrupted. Those that have escaped the flames may have no home, auto, and job – nothing but the clothing they were wearing. Needless to say the Camp Fire is (it is still burning) the most deadly and destructive wildfire in California’s history.

Currently, weather conditions are stagnant. This leads to a tremendous amount of smoke in our area, but the relatively calm wind conditions are also helping firefighting efforts. I see very little change in the weather conditions over the next 7 days. Rain would be very helpful, however any change to rainy weather looks to be beyond 7-day horizon at this time.

In addition to the tremendous human and domestic animal suffering, the flames have touched a number of prime botanical locations. Several years ago I posted my trip to the Feather River Canyon near the hamlet of Pulga. This is where the fire erupted. Prime habitat for some unusual forms of Erythronium, Calochortus, and other species was burned over. Most likely these species have survived the flames and may even benefit in the aftermath. In the future, I was hoping to revisit favorite sites from my young adulthood, Whiskey Flat, Butte Creek Canyon, and Little Chico Creek Canyon. All these sites were places I visited frequently in my youth and explored botanically. I have to admit that it cuts deeply to contemplate that these scared places to my heart will be scarred for decades.

As the current governor of California recently stated, our wildfire “problem” will not be easy to solve and will likely get worse. Forest and brush thinning can certainly help reduce wildfire potential, however highly altered ecosystems and the consequences of past anthropogenic ecological indiscretions are much more difficult to address and in many instances nearly impossible to correct.

At this time those that lost their homes, livelihood and more need help.

[Robert]

15 November 2018, 1300 UTC



Thick smoke from the Camp Fire filled the air yesterday. This photograph was taken on the crest of Peavine Ridge at approximately 5,100 feet (1,554 meters). The cap / inversion layer had been fluctuating between, + or -, 975 mb and 950 mb, over the past few days keeping much of the Sacramento Valley in dense thick smoke. Yesterday the lower cap, sort of, broke down and the smoke moved up to the 825 mb level with thick smoke in many higher mountain regions. This showed up well on the 0200 UTC Sacramento GEOS satellite sounding as well as my manual temperature observations in the area. In Sacramento it was 62 F, while on Peavine Ridge it was 63 F. The smoke drifted into even higher elevations, aided by the “canyon effect” mountain winds.



With consistently cold nights, the South Fork of Silver Creek is starting to freeze up. The ice is now 26 mm thick and the water temperature below the ice is 36.0 F (2.2 C).



Temperatures in the Lyons Creek Basin have been running in the upper teens F to lower 20’s F (-7.8 C to -5.6 C) at night.

I keep checking the long range GFS forecast, hoping for a change to rainy weather. There is not a lot of run-to-run consistency out in the 6 to 7 day range. Maybe rain next Saturday? Nothing looks good so far. Rain and snow would certainly clear the air of smoke and help the firefighters.

[Robert]

16 November 2018, 1600 UTC

Persistent dense, very unhealthy smoke prevailed all day in the Sacramento Valley. In the foothills east of the Sacramento Valley the smoke was less dense today. I see no change in the stagnant conditions over the next 6 days. There is a slight chance that a northeastern pressure gradient may develop on Sunday as a trough passes off to the east. It is possible that this could bring us some light northeasterly winds, especially in the Northern Sierra Nevada / Southern Cascade Ranges (not a good thing for firefighters). This weather event is contingent on high level convergence developing in the southeastern Oregon region bring surface high pressure, thus a good pressure gradient toward Northern California. At this time, it appears that there will not be much upper air support for this event. Sunday is still 3 days away and conditions could change.

Farther out, in the 7-day time frame, I finally see a chance for precipitation in our area! This is a long way out, however I will stick my neck out and forecast some much needed rain and maybe some high elevation snow in the Sierra Nevada. My reasoning is: The MJO has become active again, especially since about 1 November. This certainly changes the convergence-divergence dynamics in equatorial regions, which in turn effects the weather dynamics elsewhere. There are other global meteorological oscillations such as the Polar Oscillation, as well as the well-known ENSO, etc. How they impact our weather on a mesoscale (i.e. the western slope of the Crystal Range) is something I am investigating.

There is some hope I will have an outing sometime in the next 2 weeks or so. This is long overdue. Stay tuned.

[ian mcdonald]

I wish you rain Robert.

[Robert]

Ian,

Rain will be great, however the immediate weather concern is the forecasted wind event in the Northern Sierra Nevada Mountains (and Southern Cascade Range) on Saturday night – Sunday. Wind, especially strong wind, will hamper the Camp Fire firefighting efforts. At this point, the forecast could go, 50 -50, either direction. Currently, I am using nowcasting techniques (hourly, frequent monitoring) to see how this weather event evolves.

[Robert]

Now it looks like the winds will increase in the Camp Fire area late Saturday into Sunday! 

[fermi de Sousa]

Hi Robert,
Such terrible news coming through about the horrendous loss of life.
So sorry to hear this - and we are about to enter our fire season, which leaves me with a feeling of dread.
Now the blame game is starting too, which will help no one!
Regards
fermi

[Robert]

Hi Robert,
Such terrible news coming through about the horrendous loss of life.
So sorry to hear this - and we are about to enter our fire season, which leaves me with a feeling of dread.
Now the blame game is starting too, which will help no one!
Regards
fermi

Hi Fermi,

Yes, the situation is horrendous. I have never seen anything like this before in Northern California.

I also agree that blaming is a waste of time. The solution is very complex. We need to roll up our sleeves and try the best to help all those effected by the fire. This will take years. We also need to work constructively toward ameliorating future wildfire dangers. This is highly complex and I fear that much energy will be wasted arguing over how to proceed, or the wildfire fear will be used as a smoke screen for massive commercial logging. Logging and brush clearing in itself would not have stopped the Camp Fire. Simplistic solutions might look good but will not work.

I certainly hope your wildfire season is not as destructive as this season in Northern California. I know that wildfires are a major concern in your area.

At this time we are having to deal with day after day dense smoke throughout much of Northern California. Not good for anything, including the plants in the garden. 

So far, widespread east and northeast winds have not developed. The exception is in the North Fork of the Feather River Canyon, exactly where the Camp Fire started. At Jarbo Gap (in general a windy location) the wind is currently 23 mph, gusting to 35. At another nearby RAWS station the wind is 14, gusting to 21. At all other nearby locations the winds are light. There is a good east to west pressure gradient, about 5 mb, however there is not strong 500 mb support. From what I can determine, it appears the possibilities of strong winds will increase through today (Sunday). Other dynamics are in action that will hopefully reduce the likelihood of strong winds. We are just going to have to see what happens over the next 24 to 36 hours.

Later this week it finally looks like we will get much needed rain!

I hope you fair well this summer season.

[Robert]

For the most part, there were not widespread strong east to northeast winds yesterday in the northern Sierra Nevada Mountains and foothills.... except in the area of the Camp Fire. This was the last thing we needed!

As of the moment, no news on the Camp Fire, however the situation appears to be improving.

The good new is that the weather is finally starting to change. A cut-off low is digging into Southern California and we are coming under a southwestern air flow. Widespread rain and the first mountain snow looks to be arriving by late Wednesday into Thursday. This is great news! 

[Maggi Young]

Goodness knows how long it will take to repair all the damage  done by these awful fires.

[Robert]

Firefighters were able to hold the fire lines during the localized wind event on Sunday. Today the weather continues its change toward a more rainy pattern. Currently, the smoke has cleared a great deal and the sun is out with mostly clear skies.

Maggi,

I have know idea how it will be for many of the folks that live(d) in Paradise, California. There is nothing left of the town, no schools, no business, etc. All the infrastructure is gone, power, water, sewer, telephone, petro. Many were lucky to survive with their lives. They have no auto, home, work, money, clothing, except what they were wearing. It will take years to rebuild. I have never seen anything like this before. 

[Robert]

My wife and I were on Peavine Ridge yesterday. The storm clouds in the canyon were beautiful. There was a considerable amount of convective cloudiness in the Sierra Nevada with heavy downpours of rain at time. The snow level was still quite high, about 6,500 feet.

Right now I have a huge work load with some deadlines that need to be met, however I will report more soon.