cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/57722326

Mountains that normally see their peak snowpack in March are brown this year, thanks to a spring heat dome that baked the western U.S. for much of the second half of March. That’s raising alarm bells for the fire season, which is already ramping up.

John Abatzoglu, a professor of climatology at the University of California Merced, said everything is “lining up for a potentially nasty fire season across the west… the warning signs are flashing.”

The heat wave eased over the weekend after a sustained run of temperatures 11 to 17 C above normal — with highs in the 30s and 40s for multiple days in some states.

A study released on March 20 found that a heat wave this warm would be “virtually impossible” without climate change caused by human CO2 pollution, mainly from fossil fuels.

Heat records for March were broken in more than a dozen states, rapidly melting the snow off western U.S. mountains.