Back to Search
Start Over
The Synoptic and Mesoscale Evolution Accompanying the 2018 Camp Fire of Northern California
- Source :
- Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. 102:E168-E192
- Publication Year :
- 2021
- Publisher :
- American Meteorological Society, 2021.
-
Abstract
- The Camp Fire event was associated with dry, northeasterly winds that descended the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada of Northern California during the early morning hours of 8 November 2018. The downslope winds peaked around sunrise, with strong winds pushing the fire rapidly toward Paradise, California. Similar to recent central/Northern California wildfires associated with downslope winds, the synoptic pattern was characterized by building sea level pressure over the Intermountain West and a trough along the coastal zone, with both the synoptic evolution and low-level winds skillfully forecast by operational models. The maximum wind gusts along the western Sierra Nevada slopes ranged from 10–20 kt (1 kt ≈ 0.51 m s−1) at sheltered locations to 50–60 kt at exposed sites on the mid- to upper slopes of the barrier. The highest winds were not climatologically exceptional, and low-level temperatures were cooler than normal over and to the east of the Sierra Nevada, near normal over the western slopes, and warmer than normal over coastal California. Drier-than-normal conditions prevailed during the ∼3 days preceding and during the event, as a result of downslope winds. The origin of the fire can be traced to strong winds interacting with a failing electrical transmission infrastructure, with highly flammable surface fuels fostering rapid fire movement between the ignition source and Paradise.
Details
- ISSN :
- 15200477 and 00030007
- Volume :
- 102
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi...........5381c2a6728ac0c02fce555913a83c07