California wildfire advances as heat wave blankets US West
Source: AP
By DAISY NGUYEN
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) Firefighters struggled to contain an exploding Northern California wildfire under blazing temperatures as another heat wave hits the U.S. West this weekend, prompting an excessive heat warning for inland and desert areas.
On Friday, Death Valley National Park in California recorded a staggering high of 130 degrees Fahrenheit (54 Celsius) and could reach the same high on Saturday. If verified, the 130-degree reading would be the hottest high recorded there since July 1913, when the same Furnace Creek desert area hit 134 F (57 C), considered the highest reliably measured temperature on Earth.
The Beckwourth Complex two lightning-caused fires burning 45 miles (72 kilometers) north of Lake Tahoe showed no sign of slowing its rush northeast from the Sierra Nevada forest region after doubling in size between Friday and Saturday.
Californias northern mountain areas already have seen several large fires that have destroyed more than a dozen homes. Although there are no confirmed reports of building damage, the fire prompted evacuation orders or warnings for roughly 2,800 people along with the closure of nearly 200 square miles (518 square kilometers) of Plumas National Forest.
U.S. Forest Service firefighters Chris Voelker, left, and Kyle Jacobson monitor the Sugar Fire, part of the Beckwourth Complex Fire, burning in Plumas National Forest, Calif., on Friday, July 9, 2021. The Beckwourth Complex a merging of two lightning-caused fires headed into Saturday showing no sign of slowing its rush northeast from the Sierra Nevada forest region after doubling in size only a few days earlier. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/fires-environment-and-nature-california-nevada-wildfires-7c8c4733b283251d28ab1bf89533e0ea
canetoad
(17,090 posts)But hope there is no loss of life. I hate fire season.
canetoad
(17,090 posts)And it's warm(ish), sunny and calm when we should be having cold fronts and gales. Dunno if you've heard of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) but it drives most of the worlds weather via fronts, high and low systems.
It's been very active this year, but I've never seen so many cold fronts punctuated with a short southerly warm front. They hang like little h ooks off the cold fronts.
Have a look here: https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/orthographic=-224.70,-32.75,624
This is a real-time map of winds and pressure systems. Turn it around a little until the South pole is in the middle of your screen. The ACC is the band of winds and currents that circumnavigate the globe at southerly latittudes - the only unbroken ocean circuit on earth.
This southerly system drives most of the planet's weather systems. A little cooling here, a little warming there is magnified across the globe.
Gaia help us for we know not what we do.
Rollo
(2,559 posts)canetoad
(17,090 posts)Just another tool to help us understand the weather.