Key Facts Of The Day 3/28

Storms and Flooding

• A late March storm is set to bring a significant amount of rain and snow to Southern California Monday.

  • Heavy downpours and small hail are possible by mid-morning with a threat of thunderstorms continuing through Monday night.

  • Brief heavy downpours could bring minor flooding, and the potential for mud and debris flows near recent burn scar areas.

  • Winter storm warnings have been issued through Tuesday morning for some of the higher elevations across the Los Angeles, Ventura, San Bernardino and Riverside county mountains.

  • Wind advisories have been issued through Monday afternoon for parts of Los Angeles, Ventura, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

    • The San Bernardino Mountains will be hit hard with south winds 25 to 35 MPH and local gusts to 65 MPH.

• Another storm will spread across the country this week, flaring up a multi-day outbreak of severe thunderstorms that will pack damaging winds, large hail and some tornadoes.

  • Rain and thunderstorms will become widespread by late Tuesday and especially Tuesday night in the Plains and Midwest. Those storms could pack damaging winds, large hail and an isolated tornado threat.

  • In the Lower Mississippi Valley and middle Gulf Coast region, the National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center warned that, by Wednesday, there is “the potential for widespread damaging winds and tornadoes, including the possibility of a regional tornado outbreak including strong (EF2+) tornadoes.”

• A massive effort is underway to clean up a Lucas County, Iowa state park ripped to shreds by this month’s tornadoes.

  • Hundreds of volunteers came in droves to clear debris. Their buckets were overflowing with shingles, nails and other debris scattered across what’s left of Red Haw State Park.

• Tornado damage forced many out of their homes in Round Rock, Texas.

  • Some residents haven’t been able to sleep in their homes because many properties have missing roofs or walls.

Wildfires

• As of Friday, there are currently 14 large active wildfires that have burned 106,029 acres across AZ, CA, FL, KY, MA, OK, SD, TX. As of Friday, 13,996 wildfires have burned 466,807 acres across the country.

• As of Saturday,  the Eastland Complex Fire in Texas has burned 54,513 acres and is 90% contained.

• As of Friday, the Big L Fire in Texas has burned 10,177 acres and is 90% contained.

• As of Sunday the Das Goat Fire in Texas has burned more than 1,000 acres and is 10% contained.

  • Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued a disaster declaration for Medina County Sunday as nearly two dozen agencies continue to battle the Das Goat Fire.

  • Mandatory evacuations were issued Saturday for some areas, and shelters are operational for families who have been displaced.

  • Officials said to have a planned escape route established and leave early as it’s better to be safe than be slowed down due to other people evacuating.

  • An initial investigation shows the blaze was caused from a car fire.

• As of Sunday morning, the NCAR Fire in Boulder, Colorado has burned 189 acres and was 21% contained.

  • The fire was intensified by unseasonably high temperatures across the western U.S.

  • The cause of the wildfire remains under investigation.

  • The fire forced evacuations of a large zone near the National Center for Atmospheric Research and even extended into the south campus of the University of Colorado at Boulder. The evacuation areas included 19,000 people and 8,000 homes on Saturday evening.

    • The zone under evacuation orders was scaled back some Sunday but still covered 699 housing units and 836 buildings, affecting 1,629 people.

  • About 110 firefighters were working to contain the blaze Sunday.

  • The fire came on the heels of the Marshall Fire near Boulder, Colorado’s most destructive on record, on Dec. 30.

• Wildfires are increasing in size and intensity in the Western United States, and wildfire seasons are growing longer. Recent research has suggested that heat and dryness associated with global warming are major reasons for the increase in bigger and stronger fires.

Extreme Heat

• Although it’s still March, a heat wave has brought summerlike temperatures to the western United States, shattering long-standing records.

  • The unseasonably high temperatures also helped to intensify a grass fire that erupted near Boulder, Colorado, on Saturday, forcing thousands from their homes.

  •  Las Vegas, Nevada soared to 93 degrees on Saturday, while Death Valley, California, hit 104.

  • Daily records for March 26 were set in Salt Lake City, Utah (79 degrees); El Paso, Texas (87 degrees); Reno, Nevada (79 degrees); Clayton, New Mexico (82 degrees); Pocatello, Idaho (70 degrees); and Pueblo, Colorado (84 degrees), among other locations.

  • In Denver and Boulder, the temperatures just missed records but surged 20 degrees above normal into the upper 70s.

• Extreme heat already disrupts air travel, with climate change, it’s going to get worse.

  • During the unprecedented Pacific Northwest heat dome in June, Alaska Airlines flights were delayed or canceled when temperatures on the tarmac neared 130 degrees in Seattle and Portland.

  • In 2017, temperatures neared 120 degrees in Phoenix and more than 60 flights were canceled over the course of three days because the safety calculations weren’t calibrated for temperatures that high.

  • Extreme heat events are increasing in frequency and duration in the United States.

  • Under hot conditions, it takes more fuel, which is heavy, to lift the same amount of passengers and cargo. Researchers at Columbia University predict by 2050, there could be four times as many weight restriction days at the most at-risk airports in the United States.

• An ice shelf the size of New York City has collapsed in East Antarctica, an area long thought to be stable and not hit much by climate change.

  • It happened at the beginning of a freakish warm spell last week when temperatures soared more than 70 degrees warmer than normal in some spots of East Antarctica.

  • Scientists are worried that previous assumptions about East Antarctica’s stability may not be correct. And that’s important because if the water frozen in East Antarctica melted — and that’s a millennia-long process if not longer — it would raise seas across the globe more than 160 feet.

New Reports And Data

• A March 2022 study found that senior citizens have played a leading role in driving up GHG emissions in the past decade and are on the way to becoming the largest contributor in developed countries.

• A March 2022 study found that novel wheat varieties facilitate deep sowing to beat the heat of changing climates.

• A March 2022 study found that birds are laying their eggs a month earlier, and climate change is to blame.