The fires in the state that aren’t yet contained include a 250,000 acre blaze burning in Hutchinson County.
A nuclear weapons facility in the Texas Panhandle said it had evacuated some staff Tuesday amid wind-fueled wildfires that covered thousands of acres and prompted the governor to issue a disaster declaration.
The Pantex Plant, which handles nuclear weapons, said it was monitoring the situation but that there was no fire on the plant site. All weapons were safe and unaffected, the facility said.
Is it not winter there? Are there often wildfires at this time of year?
It was 88 in deep south Texas yesterday… Not sure we are getting any spring this year. Skipping strait to summer.
This past winter was the warmest winter ever recorded in human history.
…past? It’s still winter until March, regardless of the weather.
Bro it’s so warm out it may as well be late spring
Until next year.
Yes. No.
Climate change at work.
Up in Canada in northern Ontario here … we’ve had zero degree temperatures here for the past week … and a week period like this a month ago. It’s supposed to be -20, -30 traditionally here right now. And we also don’t have that much snow.
Warner temps, no snow will mean no spring water run off, no run off will mean the forest will get dry earlier, early dry forests will mean more forest fires.
The upcoming summer doesn’t look good up here.
It’s winter, but we only had low Temps for a few days in January. It hit 94 (34.444 C) at the DFW Airport on Feb 26, over 80 (26.66 C) in Austin for the last 3 days, and a high temperature between 75-82 (23.88-28.33 C) for the last 3 days in Amarillo.
Usually this is the colder part of the year hovering around 50-60 degrees (10-15.5 C), but this year has been warmer. In the last decade, we’ve had Temps like this up to Christmas time and then it usually doesn’t get this warm until aprilish. Climate change has really been messing with our temperatures though.
I’m next door in Colorado up in the mountains and we’ve been very very warm this year (60s F, 17-ish C). We’ve also had fires recently and there’s very little snow on the ground.
Winds of death seem to be kicking up already to in the Denver. Not surprised some of the elevated areas are starting to burn. Seems snow pack is okay this year based on my reading
https://climate.colostate.edu/blog/index.php/2024/02/21/colorado-mountain-snowpack-in-2024-so-far-decent-fine-ok/
Ah thank you for the data! Good to know the snowpack overall is ok. It’s just been a really warm brown winter locally and naturally we’re all dreading summer fire season.
The front range in Boulder was on fire January 2009. Also the Marshall fire of course. Pretty sure we are trending towards over 300 days a year of fire season. :\
So, it’s important to remember that Texas has a pretty similar latitude as Algeria. Cold snaps happen, but is usually very hot (100F temps for 6 months of the year) with very mild winters. The Western parts of Texas are also very arid with loads of flammable shrubs, so wild fires aren’t very uncommon.