Climate Scientist: California Wildfires Are Faster, Stronger, Deadlier & Will Continue to Intensify

[JayhawkSD]

5. News meteorologists are not scientists

They, like the "news anchors," are entertainers.

When the jet stream is on top of us it brings a "zonal flow" onshore accompanied by ocean moisture, but it is usually to cold at the surface to do much in the way of humidity. It is, however, the source of whatever rain we get. Very little, since our average annual rainfall is less than that of Tucson AZ.

When the jet stream is to the north of us the onshore flow is adaibatic, caused by temperature difference between land and sea, and is far too weak to bring any significant ocean moisture inland - not more than a mile or two. This has been the case for several weeks, with a few pulses of moisture from the southeast (Baja Gulf), but mostly just a high pressure sitting on us and no significant zonal winds onshore or offshore.

We do get monsoon rains, as Arizona does, but that moisture, moving northwest out of the Gulf of California, often out of the Gulf of Mexico actually, is mostly stopped by our mountains. We get higher humidities at that time, July-August, but the thunderstorms seldom make it down to the coastal valleys. And humidities are higher, but not all that high. Nothing like Florida. Maybe 75% at the coast and 55% inland.

We've had more than a dozen fires start, but with no winds to drive them, firefighters have been able to jump on them and prevent them from getting going.