So many places in the Southeast are extremely hot and dry that meteorologists on The Weather Channel are calling it the “Desert Southeast” these days, according to today’s WunderBlog here. Birmingham AL is on day 50 of no rain with no end to the record-setting streak in sight. Many other stations have had little to no rain since early September. The lack of any rain has been bad enough, but the September-like temperatures have caused even more problems by sucking up what little moisture there is. The Alabama WX blog from Dr. James Spann goes into more detail about the worsening drought at https://www.alabamawx.com/?p=107303. A post earlier this week from the Capital Weather Gang noted how rare it is for us to get such an extreme drought here in a region that is usually wet (at least compared to other parts of the country) here.
UPDATE late afternoon: Alabama Governor Bentley has declared all 67 counties in the state in a drought emergency, according to the Alabama WX blog at https://www.alabamawx.com/?p=107315. That puts the entire state under a “no burn” order until rescinded by the State Forester.
One of the consequences of the exceptional drought has been the onslaught of forest fires that have raged across parts of the region. More than a thousand fires have been noted in the area, and some of them have burned significant numbers of acres and closed highways due to smoke. The Rocky Face Mountain fire alone has burned over 4000 acres so far. The US Forest Service has a real-time map of large fires at https://activefiremaps.fs.fed.us/#, but many other small fires are also occurring due to tossed cigarette butts, out of control burns, and sparks from equipment. Can’t blame lightning this time since there have been no storms anywhere in the area.
I’ve seen numerous posts from friends on Facebook showing videos of the fires that are occurring. My friend Scott Lindstrom from the Space Science and Engineering Center in Madison WI sent this MODIS satellite image of the smoke plumes in northern Georgia from this morning. You can view more here if you are interested.
If you are interested in the use of prescribed fires in urban areas, you might be interested in this webinar to be held on Thursday November 10 from 1 to 2 pm EST on Fire Adapted Cities: Prescribed Fire Use in Urban and Community Forest Management. You can sign up for a free ticket at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/sfe-webinar-fire-adapted-cities-prescribed-fire-use-in-urban-and-community-forest-management-tickets-27310086203.
