"Fire isn't going away. We're going to be burning for this entire century. We're going through a global regime change and a whole bunch of things are going to catch on fire, and catch on fire again, until something new grows there, something different grows there or nothing grows there," John Vaillant, author of the new book Fire Weather.
It was in 2021 that the world was horrified by a heat dome that pushed temperatures to the highest readings in recorded history in the Pacific Northwest. That heat killed over 1000 people in Oregon, Washington Stae, and British Columbia and multiple billions of the lives of wildlife. Only two years later, another heat dome will envelop roughly the same landmass in North America again, this time in early May. People and wildlife will not die in the numbers they did in 2021, but that is only because this heatwave happens in early May when nighttime temperatures will remain cool, and is not unfolding during the height of summer. Wildfires will break out, however, because these waves of heat desiccate the region's forests turning them into tinder. Canada’s prairie provinces are most at risk.
In California and elsewhere, the snowpack is at risk of rapid melting. Authorities have warned that the flood waters could lead to hypothermia and death if anyone becomes trapped in the flooding.
The Canadian archipelago has been one of the last holdouts in the Arctic for multi-year sea ice. The Hudson Bay’s ice will soften and melt. One can only hope that the damage to the ice is minimal.
Accelerating wildfire risk will continuously threaten Canada’s prairie and sub-arctic provinces.
Florida-based meteorologist Jeffery Berardelli told the Guardian that recent projections show a higher pressure system developing over the Canadian Prairies that is “stronger than anything we have seen” since records started four decades ago.
“A ‘heat dome’ like this is a very rare occurrence in this part of the world this time of year,” he said in an email. “Historically and statistically speaking, it is rarer than a 1-in-1,000-year event.”
Berardelli said the climate of the region was now hotter than previous decades, meaning these rare events will become more likely in the coming years.
Despite the intensity of 2021 heatwave which killed more than 600 people in British Columbia and caused mass die-offs of marine life, the current weather system is unlikely to cause widespread fatalities, given the cooler night-time temperatures.
Still, in some parts of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Washington, Oregon and Idaho, temperatures will probably hit more than 15C over historical norms.
Twenty-nine thousand people were forced to flee their homes in Alberta in recent weeks due to over 412 wildfires. Daily Kos blogger Nonlinear wrote about his experience and other indigenous peoples' anxiety as they fled multiple firestorms in the province. The fires were able to be controlled as cooler weather moved in, but that will change as the same area will endure another round of heat and fires this weekend and beyond.
Portland, Oregon, will top 90 degrees, and Seattle will flirt with 90 degrees, writes the Capital Weather Gang. California's central valley will see 100s.
Warmer than average weather has been ongoing in northern Canada for some time now, but this flex begins in Nunavut and the Northwest Territories of the country Friday, where locations on Hudson Bay were already approaching record daily highs. A large area of readings around 35 degrees (20 Celsius) above average is forecast. By Sunday, temperatures 20 to 25 degrees (10 to 20 Celsius) above average stretch from Ontario to British Columbia and southward along the U.S. West Coast.
A similar zone of heat persists through at least Monday before shrinking and weakening somewhat. Despite moderation, many of the same areas can expect above-average temperatures to continue over at least the next several weeks.
Warmer than average weather has been ongoing in northern Canada for some time now, but this flex begins in Nunavut and the Northwest Territories of the country Friday, where locations on Hudson Bay were already approaching record daily highs. A large area of readings around 35 degrees (20 Celsius) above average is forecast. By Sunday, temperatures 20 to 25 degrees (10 to 20 Celsius) above average stretch from Ontario to British Columbia and southward along the U.S. West Coast.
Widespread temperatures topping 86 to 95 degrees (30 or 35 Celsius) are expected to appear as far north as sub-Arctic locations of northern Alberta. This will threaten temperature records in places such as Fort McMurray, Edmonton and Saskatoon.
Fort McMurray, as you recall, is the tar sands capital of the world, and in 2016 the city and locale burned. The fires will likely trigger PTSD for those that had experienced the firestorm.
Dry vegetation, record temperatures and powerful winds: this “perfect storm” of weather phenomena fueled the massive forest fires in western Canada’s Alberta province this year, according to researchers.
The extent of the fires and their appearance so early in the year illustrate the impacts of climate change, scientists say.
“We’ve already had 390,000 hectares (963,710 acres) burned. So it’s already 10 times the typical fire year and we’re really just getting started,” said Danielle Smith, premier of Alberta province where a state of emergency was declared.
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Spring is a risky time for fires in the area, as no snow remains on the ground and it's before plants turn green.
"We end up with very dry undergrowth and trees that are also very flammable, because they have no leaves," said Boulanger, who noted that the conditions in recent weeks "have been very dry."
Alberta’s government is the Texas of Canada.
Underwater heat waves could be reshaping weather around the world.
Underwater heat waves occur when water temperatures in parts of the ocean are well above historical averages. Alone, these events are not uncommon, but the nature of multiple, widespread events across the world's oceans is alarming to scientists.
"April was the warmest ocean average temperature on record, beating out was previously a record in the 2016 El Niño event," Robert Rohde told AccuWeather national reporter Bill Wadell. "So even though we don't have an El Niño yet, all of this put together is adding up to the warmest ocean period we've seen on record."
Rohde is a lead scientist at Berkeley Earth near Oakland, Calif., and has been analyzing the ocean temperature around the world. He added that the warming isn't just in the Pacific Ocean, where El Niño is starting to develop but "all over the place."
