From the Cliff Mass Weather Blog
Cliff Mass
On July 15/16, a massive lightning storm initiated several major wildfires east of the Cascade crest.
As shown below, this was one of the most extreme lightning events in Northwest history.
This story has escaped the notice of the media. Furthermore, several media outlets (including KING-5 news and the NY Times) and podcasters/Youtube channels have claimed that Northwest lightning has increased over time due to climate change. (see example below)
Actual lightning data show that such claims are demonstrably false.
The data is clear: the major wildfires that occurred during the past month have little to do with climate change, but were associated with a very unusual “lightning storm” of extraordinary intensity.
As I will demonstrate below, there is no upward trend in Northwest lightning, which indicates that global warming is not a major driver of regional lightning frequency.
The Data
There are two major lightning networks that cover our region and beyond: the UW World Wide Lightning Location Network (WWLLN) and the Vaisala National Lightning Detection Network (NLDN).
I first asked UW Professor Robert Holzworth and Scientist Katrina Virts, who run the WWLLN network.
I was amazed to learn that WWLLN detected 5,440 strokes over the PNW on July 16, 2026–the most of any July day in the period of record (since 2013, after which the observing network was stable).
Lightning Strikes on July 15-17.
No wonder there were a lot of fire starts!
Many are concerned about global warming, so I asked the WWLLN folks to see a plot of lightning over time. Katrina made a plot of the number of lightning days per month over the Pacific Northwest (below):
The lightning numbers are DECLINING. And this is a period of substantial global warming. Global warming is NOT contributing to more lightning over our region!.
To get an independent check on these lightning numbers, UW Research Meteorologist Jeff Baars used a completely different lightning network (NLDN), which goes back until the late 1980s.
For this network, July 16 was the third greatest July lightning day since 2013. And examining a far longer period, we see that there is no increasing trend in regional lightning…in fact, a modest decline.
So what should you take away from all this?
(1) The July 2026 lightning event was unusually extreme in terms of the number of lightning strikes, greatly increasing the number of fires.
(2) There is no observational evidence that global warming/climate change is contributing to more lightning strikes (and thus wildfires) over the region.
The latter observational result suggests that some modeling studies, which suggested the opposite, are in error. Clearly, they possess some flaws in their methodology or approach.
At least one of the three Spokane area fires was arson.
What are we saying here?
That the forest would have burned less if the fire had been started by a lightning strike rather than by an arsonit?
The ignition source is not the issue; there will always be an ignition source.
“That the forest would have burned less if the fire had been started by a lightning strike rather than by an arsonit?”
That’s what you’re saying, not what the person you replied to said. You’re getting more dishonest by the day.
The location near Spokane of the ignition by arson is a very unlikely spot for a lightning strike, unlike the July 15th hit on the Three Queens at 6,000 feet. That one was actually in a forest and not an urban setting.
What Milo is implying is that a third fire would not be as probable had there not been an arsonist. When you say “there will always be an ignition source,” you are implying that the fire would have happened with or without an arsonist. We can’t talk with certainty about any of this. However, the probability is that, in the absence of an arsonist, the extent of burning would have been less. The only thing we can say with high certainty is that after the three Spokane fires, it is unlikely that any of those locations will burn again in the near future.
This silly comment exposes your inherent bias. The point of Milo’s comment is that at least one of the three fires was not “natural.” It was the result of a criminal act and had nothing to do with CAGW. The unspoken logical implication of this is that more wind turbines and solar panels would not have prevented that criminal act. Conversely, if this criminal action had been prevented by law enforcement, there would have been one fewer fire in the Spokane area and less overall damage.
Time for you, TheFinalNail, to examine your beliefs about CAGW and why they motivate you to do and say the silly things you do.
Arson and lightning are triggers.
Massive fires are the consequences.
Root cause is FUEL aka bad or totally lacking forest management.
The root cause is nature as it is nature that creates burnable forests. Mankind can do things to reduce the burnable materials, or not, but mankind is not the root cause.
They really don’t have a choice on attribution nonsense about climate change in Washington state. There is simply too much climate tax revenue and light rail spending to think or say otherwise. The capital must have it’s money and the outer districts can only feed it.
This post hits very close to home.
My now widowed younger sister and her husband had just bought a ~700 acre ranch near Tonasket to replace the 125 acre ranch near Cle Elum that the state ‘forced’ them to sell because beavers had taken over their main horse pasture stream (a different ‘green’ story) when he died of a massive heart attack while up there alone finishing the horse corrals around their new ranch barn. (They were big into breeding, taming, selling [and riding] Appaloosa breed show horses.)
These lightening strike caused fires forced her to EVACUATE her ranch for 3 days late last month, and burned (thankfully because the winds changed) only 20 of her acres. House, barn, corrals all OK. The burned ranch perimeter fencing she can easily and cheaply get replaced. Was a very close call for her, remote east of the Cascades only 30 miles from the Canadian border.
Nothing to do with ‘climate change’, everything to do with northeastern Washington reality.
Good news, the storms brought a little much needed rain. Last winter was a severe snow deficit on her ranch.
“lightening”
Oh boy.
It is an easy mistake to make. I have done it, and been called for it. There are more important things to worry about than typos.
Autocorrect is my worst enema
Especially, if like mine, it refuses to accept The King’s English and substitutes US spelling.
It doesn’t matter what starts a fire.
Forest fires existed long before there were any human beings. They will continue to exist long after human beings are extinct.
What matters, in the context of our current situation, are the conditions that make those fires more likely and more severe.
The warmer and drier a forest is, the more likely it is to burn.
That is simple enough, right? I do not deserve a Nobel Prize for pointing that out, right?
Why is this simple observation even controversial?
It is ALWAYS warm and dry enough for big fires in Easter Washington in the summer, it is the amount of annual vegetation that matters here. I know as I have lived in the region 60 out of the last 62 years in the “Columbia Basin”, have been all over Eastern Washington over the years all the way up to the Canadian Border, in Republic, Spokane, Cle Elum, Ellensburg, Dry Fall, Grand Coulee Dam, Ephrata, Loomis and more.
Your post is astonishingly ignorant because the relationship you are proposing does not exist in the real world where wet falls/winter can actually be the main cause of unusually intense fires in the following late spring to summer time due to elevated annual vegetative growth which dries very fast and easily as most of Eastern Washington is normally hot and very very dry.
I pay attention to my swamp cooler because it pumps much moisturizes air into the home thus watch the humidity level outdoors which has commonly dropped to 13-18% at 95-100F but the outdoor cools the humidity rises to the point of shutting down the cooler.
37 years in the region for me. Annual precipitation is about 9 inches. July is 0.2 in, August is 0.28. I’m in the transition zone (ecotone) between Ponderosa Pine and Shrub-Steppe. The valley is famous for its winds.
When a long-term resident is asked if the wind always blows this hard, the answer will be: No, sometimes it blows harder.
Fewer ignition sources means fewer fires.
“are the conditions that make those fires more likely and more severe.”
Yep, that is when most arse-onists choose to start fires.
Why is this simple observation not obvious to you.
Except that none of it is true. Despite more fuel on the ground due to forestry neglect and deliberate mismanagement, there are fewer fires and less area destroyed because of uncontrolled fires.
We’d have even fewer fires in the West if we got the fake environmentalists the heck out of the way and did controlled burns and appropriate thinning and harvest.
I suspect it’s because you seem to be despised by many on here. The reason can probably be found in many of your posts, just guessing here.
He is constantly trying to make out it is because of his mythical “climate change” caused by human CO2.
It isn’t.. and he knows that.. or should by now.
I can read his puff the magic climate change posts without objection.
It is insults, the disparaging remarks, the maligning comments that turn me away from any points he is making.
It matters when the Misleadia pin the issue on CO2 instead of mismanagement and the idiots that start many of these fires either through accident or deliberate
There are always a few Warmista Arsonists out there with boxes of matches, helping things along.
Did fire not exist before matches were invented?
Yes, there are other means of starting a fire.
You seem “unaware” that even cave men had the use of fire. !
That isn’t the issue. Without arson, there would less acreage burned.
Who said arsonists use matches?
Not just matches.. apparently, at least one of the arse-onists in Spain was using a gas burner to start fires.
Fossil fuels again, those gas burners need to be regulated.
If you ever used a gas burner you would know it includes a regulator.
If lightning strikes are decreasing whilst fuel loads increase through rising CO2, will this lead to any fires that do start likely to be more intense and widespread.
It seems that at times more harm is done to the environment by controlling those fires started by nature that allows the fuel loads to build up greater than they would normally do leading to fires that cannot be controlled.
Of course, lives and assets must be protected as a first priority.
So let’s see. If climate change (e.g., global warming) causes more lightning and lightning causes more fires…..then if lightning days are decreasing (see above graphics) does that mean that global warming is decreasing? I mean correlation and cause. So we must have solved global warming;-)
Yes, and as CO2 is a recognized fire suppressant, the more of it in the air, the less intense fires will be.
Sooo –
bring on more CO2 emissions now!
Do Not underestimate the power of the Carbon Force!
The take away here is that the other side will say and do anything to keep the lie of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming alive.
UKCP18 Storms factsheet says that observations covering 1990–2019 show a small overall decrease in the number of days with thunder, of about 1 day per year over that period.
I have a noticed a significant reduction in the past 10 years or so over England and Wales. Even heatwaves are not breaking down with thunderstorms as often.
There are less lightning strikes in the UK too with a decline over recent decades, but it is based on a very slight increase in Scotland and a decrease in England. Scotland slight increase has been due the clashes of cooler and warmer air being further north so it increases there and decreases further South in England and Wales.
The reason why a warming planet causes less lightning strikes is based on the position of the jet stream and the boundaries of warm and cool air clashing.
The jet stream moving North across the globe reduces the surface area around the globe where cooler air meets with warmer air from the Sub-tropics. This is because of the shape of the planet where it gets narrower towards the poles so the further away from the equator, the less surface area around the planet at that latitude. This reduces instability around more areas of the planet.
Thunderstorms require instability with clashes in cooler and warmer air and the biggest difference between the air masses the more extreme they become. That is why Tornado Alley exists in the USA with cool Arctic air from the frigid North sometimes clashing with warm subtropical air in the South. Probably the biggest differences in temperature clashes on the whole planet around the April and May period.
A warmer planet for these reasons reduce instability, therefore severe weather and a cooler planet increase the risk of cooler and warmer air masses clashing over a larger area leading to increased severe weather.
If I didn’t know that our benevolent masters here in the Blue State US and Canada are selfless servants of the public who would NEVER try to scare us with hobgoblins and boogie men, I might be starting to think that the push to eliminate lumber harvesting and grazing from our forestlands was a key component of the Marxist Morons of Meteorology mantra to keep their weak- and simple-minded followers in a continual state of panic! Bless their little hearts!
Global cloud cover has been slowly declining over the past few years.
Fewer clouds, fewer lightning strikes. There is a real causal relationship.
That lighting days plot is very interesting, concretes my memory of the 1998 El-Nino, never endured freezing drizzle with intense lighting since then.
And what is the error band for the “modest decline” you declare? It seems to me to be much larger than the decline in your least-square line.
I think lightening is a proof of weather change, not climate change.