By Anthony Han
August of 2020 has been an unusual year for the US regarding weather. You might’ve heard about the recent temperature in Death Valley, only 4 degrees Fahrenheit (2.3 Celsius) below the record set in 1913 and 1 degree Fahrenheit (0.4 Celsius degrees) below second. Residents of northern California also experienced an unexpected lightning storm in the past week and fires threatening residential areas hours afterward. How big of a role did climate change play in these events?
California’s heat waves are no stranger to residents of the area. The summer of 2020 brought particularly hot and dry weather, a signature effect of climate change. This heat wave primed the area for fires, which started in an unlikely manner; a lightning storm.
The lightning storm that formed over the Bay Area was probably formed by two separate weather systems mixing together in an unpredictable and rare occurrence. The first condition was a moist plume of gas from Tropical Storm Fausto in the Eastern Pacific Ocean. It was downgraded to a post-tropical cyclone 12 hours after deep convection ended and the ocean water was far too cold for its continuation. However, there was already enough moisture to form clouds. Wind transported it north, where it would meet the second condition.
A relatively old storm complex over the Sonoran Desert, although only a ripple at this point, was still able to start vertical atmospheric convection in the gas that Fausto created, key in thunderstorm formation. The base of the vertical clouds were almost 3 kilometers above ground and was the source of the lightning observed. Due to the height, most of the rain would have evaporated to the dry air on the way down.
It is difficult to decipher the role that climate change caused in the formation of this freak storm in the Bay Area due to the relatively unstudied. However, it is clear that the fire-prone conditions in California are caused by climate change and continue to worsen each year.
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