2020 as it was
For some reason this forecast struck a nerve with everyone on weather twitter. A typical October pattern is cool and dry out here, but it was warm and dry. Very warm. So warm and dry that the first million acre wildfire burned through California, the first “gigafire”. The blog space was equally upset. Forecasters continually downgraded the precipitation until all that was left were high winds and despair. In the Sierra Nevada, the trails are so dry that setting a boot into the earth sends flying a mushroom cloud of powdered soil. The transit of a bicycle sets alight the path, leaving behind a brown haze, almost indistinguishable from that of the burning wildfire. We wore masks anyways, now serving two ends. Our lungs burned at the top of long climbs.
The warmest August on record in CA, followed by the warmest September on record—followed by more heat, and more records. The story was similar in Utah. I spent a good deal of 2020 in my truck, blasting across the West at 67 miles per hour (indicated). Occasionally I would stop to tape up rattling bits, or to apply hand sanitizer to a gas pump handle. To pass the time I left voicemails, or watched the desert run past. I also tried out the train, but even that felt a little too risky.
It was supposed to bring rains onto the fires. One model predicted large swathes of rain over most of the state. Instead the system stayed north, out of reach of the gigafire. On that day, the normally dry and clinical forecaster discussion took on an air of exasperation.
Inevitably some scientist will be interviewed on TV about it. When asked they will bring up their last twenty-odd research papers, with titles that all play on the same variation: Climate Change Probably Causing Natural Process to Break. Like a composer playing on a variation; climate catastrophe in b-flat. We should be seeing noisy data, varying between years, inscrutable to everything but fancy statistical tricks. Just noise. Instead, we see change in a single lifetime.
I didn’t tell my sister when the forecast changed. Her husband is a firefighter, and he’s working the fires. Over the phone I had excitedly shared the future rain, but it was not to be. It felt apocalyptic in that moment. The blog hand-wringing intensified, and the comments section became harder to moderate. Anonymous posters searched for a plausible explanation, trying to squeeze out the influence of climate:
“It’s La Niña!”
Months later, snow comes.
Again, the models are confused. An unusual distribution of sea surface temperatures has led to many more blown forecasts. Feet of snow become inches. Inches become nothing. A wet storm comes in too warm, leading to flooding. Still, it’s something. We celebrated the wealth of this water on skis. On the best days we sliced through it, frictionless, magically. Other days it soaked our jackets and grabbed our skis—a thinly veiled threat issued to our knees. Unlike last year, it’s just the two of us out in the snow. But I don’t complain, my friends and family are safe.
Unencumbered by weather, another kind of fire raged the whole year. I heard it suggested that the virus might be related to the floundering weather models. Because of the pandemic, less planes were flying. These commercial flights collect meteorological data that forces the atmospheric models, and less flights in the air means the accuracy of the models is reduced. Nothing escapes the gravity of this virus.
As a light rain falls at 6,244 feet, I watch the fireplace. Unwilling to make promises to myself for the new year, I opt for gratitude. We’re all alone together, and we’re lucky for it. Happy new year, everyone.
