I pulled up the drought monitor and it seems like it's probably a mix of this is the northeast's fire season and drier than usual conditions. But that's just a guess
Yeah meteorologist here, pre leaf out in the spring is northeast fire season and it’s a bit drier than normal this year. There is some evidence that droughts get drier in a warmer climate but I’d guess this is *mostly* a natural event. If LI burns in August then we can really talk climate footprint
Vapor pressure deficits have been at or near records for this 15-day period across most of LI, exactly in line with what you’d expect from climate change.
Absolutely no doubt a warmer world makes dry periods drier but periods dry enough for fires in the northeastern US have happened a lot and thus without a proper attribution study it’s hard for this to qualify as an “obviously couldn’t have happened without climate change” event
Yeah I think the fall dryness and associated fires have a much more obvious link to climate change, in addition to the blocking high. Would be neat to see someone do a proper attribution study but “fires in LI in March” just don’t raise my alarm bells as much as *gestures around at 100 other things*
more than higher per capita rich folk living full time in southampton and hampton bays but either way these fires stretched out a good bit farther west as well. i am from wading river on the north shore and they were near here - i believe out as far as shirley which is close to mid island
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