Hot, dry summer, higher wildfire risk predicted for Washington
May 7, 2020, 1:25 PM
A wildfire buring near Omak, Washington in August 2015. (Stephen Brashear/Getty Images)
(Stephen Brashear/Getty Images)
COVID-19 may not be the only disaster Washington state has to face this year. Just as the state eases out of coronavirus restrictions, wildfire season could start.
Long-range projections show summer 2020 as a bit hotter than normal, especially in Central and Eastern Washington.
“We’re going to have a pretty warm start to summer, and we’re more or less expecting temperatures to be above average more often than not,” said David Samuhel, a meteorologist for AccuWeather.
This prediction is a marked change from summer 2019, which saw rain and cooler days throughout much of June and July.
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Samuhel does not expect this year’s temperatures to set any heat records, but he said even the Puget Sound could see some days in the 90s.
The potentially warmer, earlier summer means that wildfires are more of a concern this year. Samuhel foresees wildfires starting in July instead of August.
“Normally we don’t see a whole lot of wildfire activity until the later summer months, but that could get going a little earlier this year,” he said.
Also contributing to the wildfire risk, Samuhel said, is the snowpack level.
“Our snow cover is a little lower than average in the Cascades, and so that means the wildfire threat will be a little more significant throughout the summer,” he said.
Snow cover through much of the Cascades remains high, but the Upper Yakima Basin is at 70 percent of normal as of Thursday.
This means that parts of Central and Eastern Washington could also be at risk for drought conditions, as shown by the United States Drought Monitor on Thursday.
Samuhel said the I-5 corridor, with its proximity to the water, should get enough moisture throughout the summer to stay away from any drought chances.
Whatever the wildfire situation turns out to be this year, Samuhel said it shouldn’t be as bad as the summer of 2017 when ash covered Seattleites’ cars for days at a time, and smoky skies blocked out the Space Needle.
Still, it looks like this weekend’s warm, summer temperatures are just a hint of what’s to come.
