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http://www.azcentral.com
Dry spell puts state on guard
Michael Clancy
The Arizona Republic
Dec. 31, 2005 12:00 AM
When no precipitation falls for 2½ months over vast swaths of Arizona, even the slightest hint of rain holds promise.
It could come soon. The National Weather Service is forecasting a 10 percent chance of rain for Monday.
But earlier forecasts for rain today have completely dried up, meaning Phoenix will enter the new year with 75 consecutive dry days, the seventh-longest dry spell since record-keeping began in 1896. advertisement
No rain has fallen in the Valley since Oct. 17. The last time both November and December were dry was in 1999.
The lack of rain means most of the state is abnormally dry or in moderate drought conditions. State fire officials say the wildfire threat remains moderate, but they worry about an early and widespread fire season.
The weekend storm hitting much of the West Coast initially looked promising, but it was downgraded during the week. Forecasters are saying if no rain falls over the next few days, it will be at least another week before it does, extending the dry spell into the top five years historically.
Warm, dry days may be just what civic boosters ordered for the long New Year's weekend, with plenty of outdoor activities including today's Fort McDowell Fiesta Bowl Parade and Monday's game.
But state land managers are concerned even though official fire-danger levels are at their lowest in winter. A series of wildfires in eastern and central Texas and Oklahoma, the most severe drought areas in the nation, caught their attention.
Winter wildfires are not unusual, said Chuck Maxwell, meteorologist for the Southwest Coordination Center, an interagency office overseeing wildfires in Arizona, New Mexico and western Texas. Dead or dormant plants burn easily, he said, especially when dried out by long periods of drought, high wind and extreme temperatures.
All those aspects combined in the Texas-Oklahoma fires, which Maxwell said appeared to be human-caused.
Arizona also has winter wildfires, most of them human-started, state Forester Kirk Rowdabaugh said. But cold overnight weather, higher humidity and the lack of wind keep them small and make them easier to put out than summer fires.
Rowdabaugh is more concerned about what may happen a few months down the road in what is a potentially deadly fire season that could start as early as March.
Since October, Arizona has had little or no snow and diminished rainfall, Rowdabaugh said. The snowpack is less than 10 percent of what normally has fallen by now, and rain is falling at rates of 2 percent to 5 percent of normal in central, western and southern Arizona.
Flagstaff, for example, has had only 2¼ inches of precipitation since Sept. 1, compared with the normal 7¾ inches, and only a trace of snow.
Without adequate winter moisture, northern Arizona's pine forests are more prone to fire.
In addition, portions of the desert that did not burn last summer have the same problems as areas that were scorched in the "Cave Creek Complex" fire.
"The grasses that did not burn are still around," Rowdabaugh said.
It all adds up to a potentially deadly fire season affecting both highlands and lowlands in the state, he said.
Patricia Garcia Likens of Salt River Project said the dry spell appears to be having little effect on anyone except that those afflicted by continuing high pollution levels. Rainstorms would have helped wash out particulate air pollution that hit extremely high levels this month.
"But we still live in a desert," she said. "We take water for granted, especially with last year's rain. It's important to keep the message out there: We need to conserve."
A series of storms would make a big difference, and earlier in the week it appeared this weekend held plenty of promise as Pacific storms began to move east.
But as the week progressed, the chance of rain diminished. Mike Bruce of the Weather Service said the expected storms, one predicted for today and another for Monday, are weaker now than expected and are passing north of the metropolitan area, with only the Grand Canyon and points north poised to receive significant rainfall.
Bruce said he was less concerned with the dry spell than with the return to drought conditions that have plagued the state for nine years.
"Last winter (with its heavy rains in January and February) could turn out to be short-term relief," he said.
This dry spell would have to run through Jan. 26 to match the 101-day record set in 1999-2000.
January averages 0.67 inch of rain annually.
The most to fall in a January was 5.22 inches in 1993. That only happened once.
And in three years, no rain fell in January, most recently in 1972.