Fire season tightens grip on region, with no significant rain on the way

Longing for rain to snap summer’s drought and douse a raging wildfire, Sonoma County residents have scant prospects for the relief that only Mother Nature can dispense.

The scientists who track weather say there is precious little precipitation in the offing as the new rain season begins on Thursday.

“We’re not talking about rainfall yet,” National Weather Service meteorologist Roger Gass said Tuesday.

For every arid day, week and month that passes, the longer a historic season of “extreme fire weather” drags on, said Daniel Swain, a UCLA climate scientist.

Statewide, 3.8 million acres have burned this year, nearly doubling the previous record, from 2018, of 1.98 million acres, according to CalMatters, the nonprofit news organization

The “potentially explosive” combination of increasingly warm and dry autumns “is something we’ve been seeing more often in recent decades,” Swain said, noting the deadly wildfires of 2017, 2018 and now this year.

Fall rains typically bring fire season to a halt, he said in his Weather West blog, adding “the earlier this occurs, the better.”

“The damn rain can’t come soon enough,” state Sen. Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg, said, calling the extended fire season “incredibly stressful, it’s emotional and it’s exhausting.”

Cal Fire Division Chief Ben Nicholls said it will take more than an inch of rain to end the season.

Instead, authorities are looking at forecasts that show another round of high heat, starting Thursday, with winds out of the north, raising the possibility of more red flag fire conditons.

The only moisture coming soon, Gass said, is an ocean fog making a deep push into the North Bay on Tuesday night, reverting to drier, warmer conditions from Wednesday afternoon through Friday.

There is a chance for an “upper level storm system” approaching the North Bay and Bay Area coast the weekend following Oct. 9, Gass said, but gave no indication of how much rain it might bring.

“It’s something we’re keeping our eye on,” he said.

Late next week, Santa Rosa could get “a little bit of rain,” said Brett Rossio, an Accuweather meteorologist, pegging it at less than a quarter of an inch.

The weather service does not issue long-term forecasts, but Accuweather, a Pennsylvania-based private company that employs more than 100 meterologists, sees a 74% chance of rain on Oct. 27 measuring 0.17 inches.

The latter part of October and November are “when you get a more active storm track across the Pacific Northwest,” Rossio said.

Accuweather also cites four days of rain in the first two weeks of November totaling about one-third of an inch -- and none at better than a 65% chance.

December is only a trifle wetter, in Accuweather’s estimate, with four days of rain totaling almost an inch.

Most of California gets the vast majority of seasonal precipitation from December through March.

Santa Rosa, over a 30-year average, gets 1.73 inches in October and 4.04 inches in November, according to the National Weather Service.

December is typically the wettest month, with 6.19 inches, followed by January (5.93 inches), February (6.02) and March (4.53).

April at 1.82 inches and May (1.28) are meager, with the rest of the year — June through September — typically yielding a combined two-thirds of an inch.

Californians enjoy their typically rain-free summers while the jet stream, also known as the storm track, remains in the far northern reaches of British Columbia, Rossio said.

You can reach Staff Writer Guy Kovner at 707-521-5457 or guy.kovner@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @guykovner.