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Dry Lightning Risk Triggers Bay Space Fireplace Climate Watch Warning – CBS San Francisco

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) – With memories of the devastating lightning complex fires of 2020 still fresh, the National Weather Service issued a fire weather warning for the Santa Cruz Mountains and the East Bay and North Bay Hills starting Sunday afternoon.

A weather system will move through the San Francisco Bay Area from Sunday through Monday morning and pose the risk of thunderstorm activity.

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⚠Fire Weather Watch was issued for parts of the #BayArea from Sunday morning to Monday morning. Concerns are dry lightning bolts that trigger new wildfires Details https://t.co/dIZvMf1zj8 #cawx #cafire pic.twitter.com/1W8hFzizu9zu

– NWS Bay Area (@NWSBayArea) July 16, 2021

“Thunderstorms will be a mix of dry and wet, but given the dryness of the fuels, lightning strikes will be problematic,” warned the weather service. “The risk of thunderstorms decreases on Monday afternoon as the moisture moves north.”

Although weather conditions weren’t as severe as expected in the fall of 2020, any lightning strike in the tinder-dry hills could spark fast moving wildfire.

In 2020, the region survived a severe heat wave that helped fuel the severity of the thunderstorms. More than 12,000 lightning strikes were recorded in Northern California over a four-day period. These lightning strikes triggered up to 585 forest fires that burned more than 2 million hectares.

Forest fires burned thousands of homes, claimed dozens of lives and charred forests, woodlands and vineyards, and left an ugly horror visible from space.

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This year, a lack of rainfall for the past nine months has resulted in excessive or extreme drought conditions. There is just no moisture in the hills.

“The recent hot and dry conditions have created very susceptible vegetation to new lightning fires,” warned the weather service. “New outbreaks of fire, combined with strong outflow winds, can cause a fire to rapidly grow in size and intensity before first responders can contain it.”

On KPIX 5 Morning News, Cal Fire Battalion chief Jon Heggie said his agency was on high alert.

“We’re hiring additional staff,” he said. “We’re preparing for the event to make sure we have all of our resources in position and are really watching the weather to make sure we know where these fires have the potential to break out.”

“The concern is the higher elevation strikes, where the fuel is much heavier,” said Paul Lowenthal, Cal Fire’s public information officer. “We’re looking for scrub, wood. This is the stuff that is critically dry at the moment, and our potential is much higher there. “

California was hit by a series of large fires for about three years, often triggered by wind events. The danger of lightning poses various challenges.

“Obviously, the difference between a dry lightning event and a wind event is that the wind … they’re coming from the northeast and pushing those fires south-southwest,” Lowenthal explained. “I’ve been seeing this on site again and again since 2017. The incidents with lightning are somewhat more unpredictable. Of course, we never know exactly where lightning will strike. We know they are usually accompanied by lots of erratic winds when these fronts move. “

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Firefighters urge everyone to remember the lessons of the past few years and think about contingency plans.

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