276 record highs, smoke from Arizona fires covering the midwest in a spring of record conflagrations and the media is talking about photos of a guy's shorts. Climate disruption has literally set America on fire but no one inside the beltway gives a damn. They are staring at pictures of a guy's crotch. What has WASA put in the water?
Image credit: derived from Wunderground.com; shades of gray indicate smoke
A total of 276 high temperature records were set yesterday across the central U.S. from Wisconsin to Texas, according to Allen Motew, head meteorologist with QT Information Systems in Chicago.
An excessive heat watch, meaning conditions are expected to become dangerous, has been issued for eastern Pennsylvania, including Philadelphia, and western New Jersey starting tomorrow, the National Weather Service in Mount Holly, New Jersey, reported.
Extreme drought across the southwest has parched vegetation in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas to the point where it is exploding into firestorms. Arizona now has 2 of its 5 biggest fires buring at the same time.
Smoke from Arizona's third ( Ed: now the second) largest fire on record, the massive Wallow fire, has now blown downwind over 1,000 miles to Iowa. The fire, which is 0% contained, is expected to rage full-force for at least three more days due to unfavorable weather. Hot, dry, and windy weather is predicted again today over Eastern Arizona, where NOAA has issued red flag warnings for critical fire conditions. A large trough of low pressure is anchored over the Southwest, and several disturbances rippling along this trough will bring strong southwesterly surface winds of 20 - 30 mph, with gusts near 35 mph, through Thursday. Extremely low humidities of 5 - 15% and hot summer temperatures are also expected, creating a dangerous fire weather situation. Yesterday, Luna, New Mexico, located about 50 miles northeast of the fire, had wind gusts in excess of 30 mph for 8 hours, temperatures near 80°F, and humidities as low as 12%. During the day yesterday, the fire grew from 300 square miles to 365 square miles, 30% of the size of Rhode Island. A separate fire burning in Southeast Arizona, the 163-square-mile Horseshoe Two fire, is the state's 5th largest fire on record. According to the Interagency Fire Center, 3.5 million acres have burned in the U.S. so far this year, the most on record for this early in the year--and more than double the 10-year average from 2001 - 2010 of 1.4 million acres. Extreme to exceptional drought conditions over most of Texas, New Mexico, and Eastern Arizona are largely responsible for the record fire season.
The smoke is forming pyrocumulus clouds that are rising like thunderheads to the level of jet planes.
Record drought in the southwest, record floods on the Missouri Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, record tornado outbreaks and record fires.
You would think someone in Washington would notice. You would think reporters would be raising Hell. You would think progressives would be screaming bloody murder.
But you would be wrong.
No one's doing a damned thing to solve real problems from the collapsing recovery
Brenancke: “Until we see a sustained period of stronger job creation, we cannot consider the recovery to be truly established.”
to the collapsing climate. They are listening to fake news, listening to lying corporate plants, and staring at pictures of a bulge in a guy's shorts.
Update
Some of the forests on fire in Arizona will not reforest because the climate is changing faster in the southwest than anywhere in America south of the Arctic. The mountains of the southwest are warming rapidly, pushing temperature sensitive species up the mountains. Forests that were marginally able to survive the heat 20 years ago will not come back.
PBS will be running a beautiful but haunting show on the sky islands of the south west this July.
Watch the full episode. See more Sky Island.