The dormant wildfire season — which has produced nearly all of the 30 largest wildfires in Texas — is here, but data from the Texas A&M Forest Service suggest this may be a mild year thanks to El Niño.
After a summer of intense heat, drought conditions have reduced, said Lucas Kanclerz, a fire analyst with the Texas A&M Forest Service’s Predictive Services Department.
“We’ve seen a reduction in the drought that we were building into over the summer from the recent precipitation that occurred in mid- and late December,” he said. “There may be some drought that persists just because of the lingering spring rainfall deficits from the summer. But for parts of east Texas they’re actually showing drought improvement or even drought removal.”
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The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced the El Niño climate pattern returned in June last year.
Kanclerz said this typically means wetter conditions for Texas.
“With the El Niño conditions that are forecast, that typically means that Texas is more in a moist and cool environment through the winter and early spring months,” he said.
Between volunteer and municipal fire departments and the Texas A&M Forest Service, there were 6,998 wildfires reported last year, Kanclerz said.
After a wet pattern in spring, Kanclerz said conditions quickly pivoted to hot and dry weather, or flash drought, by July.
“We went from having no fires to seeing a really rapid increase in wildfire activity by mid-July,” he said. The season peaked in August with more than 500 fires statewide.
Yeah, last year was really bad for wildfires. As I’ve said before, any time you’re comparing a year to 2011, it’s not good. Hopefully that won’t be an issue this year.
Last year was the hottest ever recorded in Texas based on average temperature, according to new data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a record that follows a global trend as climate change advances.
The average temperature in Texas measured 68.1 degrees last year, said John Nielsen-Gammon, the state climatologist. That’s 0.3 degrees higher than the previous record set in 2012.
The heat came early — on June 20 Del Rio hit 113 degrees while San Angelo hit 114 — and much of the state remained well into triple digits throughout the summer. The June 24 high of 119 degrees in Big Bend National Park was one degree below the state’s all-time daily record.
It’s a continuation of a broader warming trend, Nielsen-Gammon said. Every year since 2000 in Texas has been warmer than the 20th century average. Last year was a whopping 3.5 degrees hotter than the 20th century average in the state.
“That consistent warmth is because of climate change,” Nielsen-Gammon said.
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Andrew Dessler, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University, said temperatures fluctuate from region to region over time in part because of randomness in the weather, but baseline temperatures continue to rise.
He said by the time his 18-year-old twins are middle aged, he expects that 2023 could feel like an average summer to them. And when they are old, they might remember 2023 as a relatively cool summer.
“You can think of (2023) as kind of a preview of the future and it’s not pretty,” Dessler said.
Yep, that’s bad. We may get a temporary break from some of the badness this year, but if it happens it’s a break and not a trend. The big picture is bad and we really need to do more about it.