ORLANDO, Fla. – The U.S. is under siege Wednesday and days to come. Severe weather is set to “ignite” out east near the lower Great Lakes and Midwest.
Even further out west, along the Front Range of the Rockies in Colorado south through New Mexico, and then reaching into the Plains, we’ve got critical fire conditions in place.
Right now, there is approximately 200,000 acres ablaze in different parts of Colorado, New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma. The threat continues to rise as the wildfire count grows.
One fire in particular, was sparked in Beaver County, Oklahoma. The fire itself is not contained as of yet and has already claimed over 145K acres in land.
The cause has yet to be determined, and its all hands on deck as fire crews work feverishly round the clock to get this extreme event boxed in and contained. Excessive winds ranging from 50-70 mph is salt on this smoldering open wound.
The same critical fire conditions are in place ahead of our severe weather event up north across Iowa, Illinois and eastern Nebraska.
The storm system coming across this region shortly will only cause more problems with frequent lightning strikes and high winds.
The beneficial rainfall will actually come in the form of thunderstorms, potential supercells and a tornado risk.
The southwest and southern Plains will struggle to combat their fire danger. Looking long-range, we’ll miss just about every and any opportunity to drop some rainfall in the areas with active blazes underway.
Through now and the end of February, relative humidity and overall moisture available across that part of the U.S. will be dangerously low.
We’ll be keeping an eye on wildfire conditions across the country, because it’s becoming a more ominous problem here in Central Florida.
We’re still in the midst of a La Nina pattern in the Tropical Pacific. Despite the record setting lows we faced early February, this has been a much drier and more mild winter than we’ve seen in a while.
Believe it or not, the lack of any tropical system landfalls last year has made matters that much worse, resulting in excessive dryness for just about all of us regardless of where you live in Florida.
We’ve already faced a few notable fires, and here’s to hoping we won’t have any greater issues as dry season continues for at least another month.
In the immediate future, after next weeks quick zap of wintry cold, we’ll be seeing our overall moisture collapse without a notable shot for rain until maybe early March.