Fire and Drought:
2002 Fire Weather Season
| John Horel | |
| NOAA Cooperative Institute for Regional Prediction | |
| Department of Meteorology | |
| University of Utah |
| 2002 Fire Season in context | ||
| Major fires of the 2002 Season | ||
| Hayman (Colorado) | ||
| Rodeo-Chediski (Arizona) | ||
| Biscuit (Oregon; No. Calif.) | ||
| Real-time Observation Monitor and Analysis Network: ROMAN | ||
| Outlook for 2003 | ||
| Is 1976-77 an analogue? | ||
http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/reports/billionz.html#LIST
Trend in # Fires and Total Yearly Acreage
Fires: 1981-2000
http://www.fs.fed.us/r4/rsgis_fire/
Selected Major Historical Fires
| Oct. 8–14 1871 | ||||
| over 1,500 lives lost and 3.8 million acres burned in nation's worst forest fire | ||||
| Weather: prolonged and widespread drought and high temperatures, capped off by a cyclonic storm in early October | ||||
| Started same day as Chicago fire (cow/lantern) | ||||
| http://www.peshtigofire.info/ | ||||
| QLCA3 |
Aug. 16: http://www.fs.fed.us/eng/rsac/fire_maps.html
Seattle Times Thursday, December 12, 2002
| Sweeping shift in forest policy: Bush plan would skip environmental reviews | |
| WASHINGTON — In a sweeping forest-policy revision, the Bush administration announced plans yesterday to fundamentally alter how it manages federal lands by skipping extensive environmental reviews in the name of wildfire prevention. | |
| The proposal is part of a strategy to streamline environmental laws and help the land-management bureaucracy tick along more smoothly. It would allow the administration, in many cases, to skip traditional environmental analysis for projects that reduce wildfire risks or rehabilitate forests after wildfires occur. | |
| But environmentalists saw the changes as an attempt to remove the public's voice from decision-making while the administration tries to boost logging on federal lands. And some in Congress viewed the proposals as an attempt to sidestep lawmakers. | |
| The debate heated up last fall, after more than 7 million acres burned nationwide and President Bush announced his "Healthy Forests Initiative." The plan called for a range of changes, from limiting bureaucratic processes and appeals to expediting work that reduces wildfire dangers. |
NOAA Cooperative Institute for Regional Prediction (CIRP)
| ROMAN: Real-time Observation Monitor and Analysis Network | |
| ROMAN Development Team: | |
| John Horel | |
| Mike Splitt | |
| Judy Pechmann | |
| Brian Olsen | |
| Alex Reinecke* | |
http://www.met.utah.edu/mesowest
| Real-time collection of weather observations from over 3000 stations and 80 participating organizations | |
| Data processing, QC, and graphics generation every 15 min | |
| Observations in areas not sampled by NWS/FAA or RAWS networks | |
| Improved analysis/diagnosis of local and regional wind systems | |
| Specialized interfaces for fire weather, RWIS, wind power applications | |
| Access to portable Fire RAWS observations |
| Utah ARPS Data Assimilation System (ADAS) | ||
| 2D surface analyses at 1km resolution over northwest Utah every 15 minutes | ||
| 2D surface analyses at 10km resolution over western U.S. every 15 minutes | ||
| 2D surface analyses at 2 km resolution over western U.S. every hour | ||
| 3D analyses at 1 km resolution over northwest Utah hourly* | ||
| Mesoscale analyses require different assimilation techniques than those on a national scale, especially in complex terrain | ||
| Local analysis serves as a visual and numerical integrator of the MesoWest surface observations | ||
| Background and terrain fields help to build spatial & temporal consistency in the surface fields | ||
| Analyses serve as an additional quality control step to the MesoWest observations | ||
ADAS Surface Analysis: 2 km Resolution
| National Interagency Coordination Center (NIFC) and Geographic Area Coordination Centers (GACCs) manage fire fighting resources throughout the U.S. | |
| Meteorologists at NIFC and GACCs requested access to real-time weather observations | |
| Software under development at CIRP to meet those needs as well as those of the entire fire weather community, including NWS forecasters at WFOs and IMETs assigned to fires | |
| Access to observational data from a variety of networks (federal, state, local, and commercial) | ||
| Tabular and graphical formats geared to operational fire weather needs | ||
| Intuitive, easily navigable interface | ||
| Clickable maps for CWAs & States (NWS and GACC fire zones*) | ||
| Station Weather | ||
| Weather Summary | ||
| Trend Monitor | ||
| Weather Monitor | ||
| 5 Day Temp/RH Summary | ||
| Precip Summary | ||
| Weather Near Fires | ||
| ADAS Maps | ||
Outlook for the 2003 Fire Season
| Federal Aerial Firefighting: Assessing Safety and Effectiveness. Blue Ribbon Panel Report. Dec. 2002 | ||
| Much of the nation has been subjected to prolonged and severe drought since 1996 | ||
| Has created, in some areas, the worst fire danger experienced in more than 100 years | ||
| As of Oct. 2002, nearly 50% of the U.S. landmass “continues to be in a moderate-to-extreme state of drought” | ||
| Agency’s forecasters said that the drought conditions are expected for at least another 3 to 4 years | ||
Wildlife Need Flood Like
Noah's
Salt Lake Tribune Jan. 27, 2003
| When was the last time January temperatures have stayed 10 to 15 degrees above normal? The last time it was colder in Georgia than Park City and raining at Snow Basin in January? | ||
| Back when eight-track stereos ruled, said Randy Julander, snow survey supervisor for Department of Natural Resources Conservation Service. The time before that was the early 1960s, before there even was a Super Bowl. | ||
| "But 1977 was by far the nastiest snow pack year we've ever seen," Julander said. "We're still well above '77 levels, but very close to '61 and '63 levels.“ | ||
| In 1977 an amazing thing also happened -- the kind of thing that breeds hope for the future. Rain, tons of it, and cool weather started in April and ran clear into July/ | ||
| "People remember it as the wettest drought," Julander said. "We are a lot worse now than last year. We've been losing 1 percent a day, down 20 percent just since Jan. 1 in terms of percentage of average moisture." | ||
| Right now, Utah is at 50 percent of normal. | ||
| "We reach February with these numbers and historically we've never had enough to catch us up to average," he added. "We need something along the lines of Noah to get us back in line. The numbers are just astounding." | ||
Climate Prediction Center: Spring ‘03
Climate Prediction Center: Summer ‘03
| 2002 Fire season was one of the biggest in the past 40 years | ||
| ROMAN under development for use by fire weather professionals | ||
| www.met.utah.edu/roman | ||
| 2003 fire season? | ||
| Will require above normal late winter/spring precipitation to overcome current drought/fuel state | ||
| Presentation on-line at: http://www.met.utah.edu/jhorel/homepages/jhorel/jhorel.html | ||