From the Cliff Mass Weather Blog
Cliff Mass
Large fires are now burning on Maui, Hawaii with severe damage to the historic town of Lahaina on Maui’s west side.
Downtown Lahaina burning. Picture courtesy of Alan Dickar
Satellite imagery shows two major fires… one near Lahaina and the other in the high country east of Kihei (see images below, the orange and red dots show the fires).
As I will discuss below, these fires are the results of strong winds and bountiful grass, plus human ignition sources. Wetter and cooler than normal conditions during the past six months played a role.
Wildfires and Hawaii
Believe it or not, Hawaii is one of the most fire-prone states in the U.S. (see map below of some historical fires)
With persistent trade winds out of the east or northeast, the eastern side of the Hawaiian Island is quite wet (with moist upslope flow), while the lee (or Kona) sides are dry (see climatological precipitation map of the Hawaiian islands below).
That is why many people vacation at Kona (Big Island), Lahaina (Maui), or Poipu Beach (Kauai), where warm, dry weather dominates.
There is sufficient precipitation on the lee side of the islands for substantial grasslands to develop, with grasslands increasing during the past several decades as agriculture has declined on Hawaii (e.g., the sugar cane industry is essentially gone).
To illustrate, here is an image taken by Google near Lahaina. Lots of grass.
An inferno ready to happen.
You can also view the large grassy areas on Maui on this satellite image (grassy areas are brownish in color)
Such grasses are highly flammable, even a day after rain, with fire growth greatly encouraged by strong winds.
And Hawaii frequently gets strong trade winds.
Why did the Maui fires happen now?
Very strong trade winds developed yesterday, as a large pressure difference (gradient) formed between a strong subtropical high and hurricane Dora to the south.
To show how unusual this pattern is, the figure below shows the sea level pressure at 11 PM PDT last night, and the normalized anomalies from the typical sea level pressure (colors).
MUCH higher pressure than normal was found just north of Hawaii (red and brown colors), while an area of lower than normal (blue colors) was found south of Hawaii (due to Hurricane Dora).
The result of this anomalous pressure pattern was greatly enhanced winds that fanned the flames and I suspect helped start fires (by downing powerlines). A familiar story to those of us in the Northwest.
How strong were the winds? Below are the maximum gusts on Tuesday provided by a NOAA website–some as high as 62 mph. Other reports were as high as 80 mph.
Model simulations/forecasts suggested strong wind acceleration on the lee slopes of the substantial terrain of Maui and downstream of gaps in its terrain (the University of Hawaii high-resolution surface sustained wind prediction for 6 PM PDT Tuesday is shown below)
The situation this year on Maui was made even more dangerous on Hawaii because the past half-year was WETTER and COOLER than normal, which enhanced grass growth. I repeat wetter and cooler.
I don’t have to tell you what some media will be ascribing the Hawaii wildfires to😆
To demonstrate wetter/cooler conditions, here is the departure of precipitation from normal for the past six months (in inches). Western Maui was wetter than normal. Much of the big island was crazy wet. This excessive moisture was the result of several powerful Kona Storms this winter.
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Temperatures the past six months? As shown below, a bit below normal over western Maui.
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So we started with a region prone to grassfires (the western side of Maui). We had enhanced grass growth due to extra precipitation, and then the area was hit with unusually strong winds.
Many of the same ingredients came together to produce the recent large grass fires in eastern Washington.
Not just Eastern WA. We had a grass wildfire today four miles from my house in Eastern Oregon. And today’s high was only 88 F., but we had the requisite wind.
We have multiple fires every day. What we do not have is a lot of people or tourist to make it a media event.
I am camping about a mile from the state line. Fire season is over for me. What could burn has burned.
Last month there was a big fire. I had visitors from places that deal with floods on a routine basis. They were a little worried when we were told to be ready evacuate.
They were also surprised that it did not make the news. No doppler radar tracking the storm cell minute by minute.
Some ecosystems tend to burn, and blaming SUVs, sin, or witches is unproductive.
Cooling leads to more wildfires too.
The media are too thick to deal with such nuances.
Except for the lack of wind turbines covering the landscape, this photo could have been taken in eastern Washington State or in the drylands of central and eastern Oregon.
Looks like parts of North Island NZ.
Was in Maui just north of Lahaina for Christmas, island was quite dry then
But I guess last 6 months changed.
We did have 3 days of storms on arrival, quite interesting
Fires correlate so highly to the number of previous rainless days…that there is no use trying to blame it on climate change…although it probably does correlate to gasoline use by arsonists.
If we just had some governmental regulations forcing the arsonists to use batteries instead of fossil fuels, then some of these fires could have been avoided!
\\\ Al Gore mode off
One typhoon in the western Pacific has made landfall in South Korea, another will reach Japan.
Eastern Circulation.
Story tip…
Hawaii wildfires are the result of climate change.
– – – – – – – – –
Wildfire ‘apocalypse’ kills 6 in Hawaii’s Maui island
Blazes fanned by winds of distant hurricane force residents, tourists to flee
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/hawaii-wildfires-1.6931213
Maui fires live updates: six dead, dozens injured in Hawaii as Hurricane Dora winds drive wildfires
People pulled from ocean after attempt to escape fires burning on Hawaiian island of Maui, driven by strong winds; Biden mobilises ‘all available federal assets’
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2023/aug/10/hawaii-wildfires-dead-dozens-injured-as-hurricane-dora-winds-drive-fires-through-maui-town-of-lahaina
Forgot the /sarc?
I was pointing out, that even though Hawaii’s wildfires are only a few hours old, certain alarmist media are already blaming climate change.
I was surprised to learn in the post that Hawaii is one of the most fire prone states.
Aside from volcanos and advancing lava fires, the MSM never seems to report on them.
Now they are. Now they can blame “Climate Change”.
Yes. One well known newspaper even tried to claim Hawaii was usually ‘known for lush vegetation’…. maybe on the sides of the islands that receive most of the rain
AP, CBS and NBC have already reported that the disaster is climate related. They all say hurricane Dora was “extreme weather caused by climate change, experts say”. Of course, they do not bother to name the experts.
Katharine Hayhoe is supposed to be an expert.
– – – – – – – – –
Devastating Hawaii fires made ‘much more dangerous’ by climate changeGlobal heating is causing vegetation to dry out, priming it as fuel for an outbreak of fire, says scientist at Nature Conservancy
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/11/hawaii-fires-made-more-dangerous-by-climate-crisis
The stark reality…
Nature needs money
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/09/lula-brazil-amazon-rainforests-money
So hand it over
This was in my newspaper a few days ago which was never even mentioned on the BBC news. Yesterday my neighbour returned from a two week holiday in Crete (another burning hell hole according to the BBC) and yes there were fires but according to locals they were started by developers wanting to buy more land for profit.
When you are between atmospheric high pressure and low pressure the wind will blow. Mix in a fire and some fatalities and the CAGW crowd gets to weaponize weather into climate. This climate drivel is then fed to the idiot low-information voters, and their enablers, and the story gets airtime. Reality? Science? Common or rare? Never mind.
Here is the live Zoomearth thermal view
Zoom Earth | Weather Maps & Live Hurricane Tracker
Thanks for the link.
Interesting factoid-
Some 85% of wildfires in the US are caused by humans, according to the National Park Service.
What caused the Maui wildfires in Hawaii? Deadly blaze prompts mass evacuation (msn.com)
Was in Lahaina in September. Sorry to see the brewery was lost. Hopefully the Museum/Courthouse is safe. The surrounding countryside was very much a prairie wildfire waiting for a spark. I did not however see danger to the town as it seemed like there was sufficient buffer.
The map showing locations of fires historically is very interesting. The vast majority seem to be concentrated in populated areas and along major roads. That would seem to indicate humans and infrastructure as the dominant sources of ignition. Not surprising since the main natural ignition source – lightning – is a rare occurrence in Hawaii. Wind + dry grasses + ignition = Wildfire.
Don’t confuse correlation with causation. Populations and roads are likely to go the same places where grassy plants also thrive. Sure, human ignition but consider the geography.
“Each year, about 0.5% of Hawaii’s total land area burns each year, equal to or greater than the proportion burned of any other US state. Over 98% of wildfires are human caused.
hard to that number
https://www.hawaiiwildfire.org/home
36 dead. Pretty bad.
And getting worse, the death toll is rising.
Another wonderful article using solid meteorology/climate and authentic facts.
One element not discussed, however is this:
I’ll add something extremely significant that Cliff did not mention but was a huge factor.
For every +5 ppm of added CO2 to the atmosphere, since the Industrial Revolution, the average plant growth(with wide variations) has been an increase of around +1%.
The global CO2 has increased about 130 ppm from 290ppm to the current 420ppm.
This equates to a +26% increase in plant growth, including crop yields, just from photosynthetic fertilization.
Proof of that is below. Use plant studies like this that keep all the other factors constant and only enrich the air with added CO2.
Keep in mind that the studies enriched way up to +300ppm and more. The benefits from added CO2 are always the greatest at lower levels.
So the benefits that started when we were increasing from 290 ppm were likely much MORE than +1% for every +5ppm. Adding more from here is likely to be adding less and less benefits until we max out at the optimal level of 900 ppm which will never happen.
Benefits now might be more like +1% for every +10 ppm for some plants. However, the studies below on native grassland in TX show that they may still be increasing at the rate of +1% for every +5 ppm with another added 300 ppm that they used.
Here’s the proof:
http://www.co2science.org/data/plant_growth/plantgrowth.ph
http://www.co2science.org/data/plant_growth/dry/dry_subject.php
http://www.co2science.org/data/plant_growth/dry/dry_subject_g.php
http://www.co2science.org/data/plant_growth/dry/g/grassland.php
Native Texas Grassland
Statistics
300 ppm
Number of Results 3
Arithmetic Mean +68.7%
Standard Error 13.6%
Individual Experiment Results
Journal References
Experimental Conditions
300 ppm
Polley et al. (2019)
Aboveground net primary productivity of a Texas native grass assemblage grown on sandy loam soil and exposed to 10-years of CO2 enrichment during the growing season
59%
Polley et al. (2019)
Aboveground net primary productivity of a Texas native grass assemblage grown on silty clay soil and exposed to 10-years of CO2 enrichment during the growing season
101%
Polley et al. (2019)
Aboveground net primary productivity of a Texas native grass assemblage grown on clay soil and exposed to 10-years of CO2 enrichment during the growing season
46%
++++++++++++++++++++++++
So unless you want to make a case that photosynthesis is killing the planet and that massively boosting global food production/crop yields is bad for the human race……….then CO2’s biggest contribution to this fire has MUCH greater positives for life on our planet than a negative like this one.
Death by Greening:
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/69258/
How much of the dry grass shown in the area around Lahaina is cheat grass?
Also Lahaina is on the downwind side of the island which would have made it a shelter in the days of sail and much easier to be used by ships and outrigger canoes with a milder surf. However those winds would push a ground grass fire into town with embers flying ahead. A local commented in a news report that he thought there was enough of a belt around the town to prevent this tragedy. The Marshall, Colorado fire in December 2021 quickly destroyed 1000 homes. It was a grassfire and burned 6000 acres total. The previous spring had been wet and that promoted a 60% increase in grass growth. Winds driving the fire were chinook winds with gusts up to 100 mph.
Lot of Intresting articles about how hard it is to lower grass fire risk. One mentioned that grassfires tend to occur every 5 to 25 years naturally in that environment and that the native grasse had evoked to deal with that. This might explain why fires are so common in Hawaii with the split between wet leeward and dry downwind sides of the islands.
Great points!
This was clearly from natural variation in weather, along with an enormous amount of fuel available because of favorable growing conditions.
If we suddenly reduced global CO2 back down to 290 ppm, wildfires wouldn’t have as much fuel………..but over a billion people would die/starve within 3 years because of the negative impact on crop yields/world food production.
The type of grass growing on Maui may be different than the TX grass in the study above but the same law of photosynthesis applies which was the point.
Here’s a much more comprehensive discussion of this topic at my forum:
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/98093/
Typhoon will bring heavy downpours to Japan.
The typhoon, along with the jet stream, has formed an extratropical cyclone over Japan, which means prolonged rainfall.
I came across a particularly insightful article:
Hawaii warned of man-made threat years before lethal wildfire, but activists scream ‘climate’ now
The article refers to the work of a Dr Trauernicht (ironically meaning don’t mourn):
humans are largely responsible for “much of the increase in wildfire threat by increasing the abundance of ignitions” and “introducing nonnative, fire-prone grasses and shrubs” to the chain of islands.
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/environment/hawaii-wildfires-invoked-demand-climate-emergency-biden-specialist
They had hoped that the hurricane would turn over Hawaii, but the circulation in the tropical central Pacific remained easterly and the hurricane skirted Hawaii far to the south. If the hurricane had passed over Hawaii, that would have been another topic. Instead of warning people of real dangers, the weather service is inventing apparent problems.
