For those of you concerned about wildfires and wildfire smoke, I have some very good news: recent rain has greatly knocked back regional wildfires, particularly in British Columbia and Idaho.
Furthermore, substantial rain is predicted over British Columbia next week, which should help maintain the reduction.
To illustrate the changes, below are NASA MODIS satellite images taken around noon today and on August 18th. On August 18, major fires were pushing lots of smoke out over southern BC and the north Cascades. MUCH less smoke today, although a thin veil of regional smoke remains.
August 18
August 24
Idaho and western Montana imagery are shown below. On August 18th, there were major smokers over the Rockies.
But only some residual smoke today! Much better.
The main cause of this reduction was the substantial rain during the past week.
Below are the totals over the past five days. 1-2.5 inches over portions of southwest BC and Western Alberta. And similar totals over Idaho and western Montana. Serious precipitation.
You can thank the remnants of Hurricane Hilary for a lot of this wet bounty.
And more is coming.
For the next few days it will be generally dry and warm, but early next week the spigot will be turned on again as a strong trough of of low pressure moves through. Take a look at the predicted totals for the 48 hr ending 5 AM next Thursday (below).
Wow…southern BC will get a lot more rain and that will further extinguish or reduce wildfires. The main source of our recent smoke will be greatly lessened.
The northern Rockies and Cascades will get precipitation as well
At this point, I am increasingly optimistic that the current lower-than normal burned acreage situation in Washington State will continue into early September. The amount of forest fires has been particularly low over Washington State this summer.
Keep in mind that we only have about a month left of the Northwest wildfire season.
