Ground fog again this way-too-early, and way-too-soon Monday as we climb out onto the limb of a work week.
Saturday and Sunday appear to pass in a flash — and here we are!

This can’t be good news for us in the dry-tinder western US and the hope of an El Niño-influenced rainy season: While forecasts of strength still have uncertainty, we think a weak or moderate event more likely than a strong one, and more likely than no event at all. A weak event now appears just slightly more likely than a moderate one.
Also from the The Australian Bureau of Meteorology: “If an El Niño were to occur, it is increasingly unlikely to be a strong event.”

(Illustration found here).

We were all looking for the El Niño-effect to wash away our drought blues, or at least produce some kind of rain-smile, but now I guess we’re in for a long, hot haul. This whole thing sucks of the Butterfly-effect:

Though rainfall across Southeast Asia has been roughly average in recent months, there’s evidence that El Niño will tip the scale toward drought.
If a big drought does occur, it could have profound and lingering consequences worldwide.
Large-scale Indonesian forest fires linked to the huge 1997-1998 El Niño released the equivalent of about one-quarter of the world’s human-caused carbon emissions that year.
A recent study found Indonesia has now surpassed Brazil as the epicenter of global deforestation, thanks in part to the explosion of palm oil plantations there.
Another interesting development in India is that the Indian Ocean Dipole — a periodic oscillation of ocean temperatures that influences the important monsoon circulation — is moving in the opposite direction of a typical El Niño years, increasing the odds of a poor rainy season there.
On Thursday, the Indian Meteorology Department announced (PDF) that monsoon rains had finally reached the entire country, though cumulative rainfall is still running a whopping 37 percent below normal.

Drought conditions, not only just here in California, but across much of the western US, will continue and with it, wild fires developing their own lifestyle.
And in Washington state, Gov. Jay Inslee got dramatic: “I know people have seen fires before. This is a different beast. This is a fire storm.”
Inslee was talking about what’s been dubbed the Carlton Complex fire, which now covers 370 square miles in the north-central part of the state — at minimum, 150 homes have been destroyed with about 1,400 firefighters working more than 100 fire engines, along with helicopters dropping buckets of water and planes spreading flame retardant.
Okanogan County Sheriff Frank Rogers on Sunday saw a ray of hope: “It’s the first time in four days I’ve seen blue sky,” he said. “Every day, when you got up, it was nothing but smoke. All we’ve seen of the sun is a red ball.”

And climate change is really, really real — from the Sydney Morning Herald, this morning:

A common refrain by climate sceptics that surface temperatures have not warmed over the past 17 years, implying climate models predicting otherwise are unreliable, has been refuted by new research led by James Risbey, a senior CSIRO researcher.
Setting aside the fact the equal hottest years on record – 2005 and 2010 – fall well within the past 17 years, Dr Risbey and fellow researchers examined claims – including by some members of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – that models overestimated global warming.
In a study published in Nature Climate Change on Monday, the team found that models actually generate good estimates of recent and past trends provided they also took into account natural variability, particularly the key El Nino-La Nina phases in the Pacific.
…
In roughly 30-year cycles, the Pacific alternates between periods of more frequent El Ninos – when the ocean gives back heat to the atmosphere – to La Ninas, when it acts as a massive heat sink, setting in train relatively cool periods for surface temperatures.
By selecting climate models in phase with natural variability, the research found that model trends have been consistent with observed trends, even during the recent “slowdown” period for warming, Dr Risbey said.
…
“The climate is simply variable on short time scales but that variability is superimposed on an unmistakable long-term warming trend,” he said.
While sceptics have lately relied on a naturally cool phase of the global cycle to fan doubts about climate change, the fact temperature records continue to fall even during a La-Nina dominated period is notable, Dr Risbey said.
The temperature forcing from the build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere “is beginning to overwhelm the natural variability on even shorter decadal time scales”, he said.

In other words, we’re right on track — a fire storm coming.

(Illustration out front found here).