Drought for the west

[Oak]

The Dixie fire here in N. CA. Is a monster. A few nights ago part of it came over the Diamond Mtns. just east of Janesville. It came over at the worst time as the thermals were strong and it pushed an arm of it down to the valley floor in a matter of minutes. I was watching it from my house and couldn’t believe how fast it moved. Lots of homes gone. The past two days they threw everything but the kitchen sink at a spot going back up a Canyon on the West side of this arm. I was amazed that all the retardant and water dumped on it didn’t stop it for two days. It didn’t grow in size or move very fast, but just kept at it. Looks like it’s still burning at that spot this morning.

Here’s what it looked like. Two hour time lapse. Dixie just surpassed 700,000 acres.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1427500924306477057

 

[MarvB]

The thing is raging Terry, currently 700,630 acres and over 1,094 square miles. That area area Janesville and Sunsanville I know very well and its going to hard to get ahead of....plus probably another 18,000 people living in that immediate area. Don't know what its going to take (other than winter) to put this monster out.

 

[mottlet]

Here’s what it looked like. Two hour time lapse. Dixie just surpassed 700,000 acres.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1427500924306477057

Good night...I've stared down approaching wall clouds ducking hunting by myself in Mississippi that didn't have that kinda ominousness to em.

 

[Oak]

Flash flooding in UT. The Dirty Devil River hit 9,000 CFS.

 

[marksjeep]

Impressive, flashy little bugger.

0.90" here north of GJ. Nice steady soak.

 

[hank4elk]

After a great start to monsoon season in SW NM,it has been bone dry & 90 again since before Labor day. Finally cooling off some,but no rain in sight. My 2' high gramma grass is fading. Fall grasses going now.

 

[Westxhunter]

What a difference a couple weeks makes. Dove season opener, we were rained on and I came home with about 40+ mosquito bites.... OFF Sport was a fail Deep woods only now. Went again yesterday, dry as a bone, tons of birds and only one bite.

 

[hank4elk]

Raining again after bone dry & hot again since Labor Day. Late fall monsoon back. Good rain totals for me so far, but we are still in "Severe Drought" listing.

 

[JLS]

We’ve had more rain in the last two weeks then we had in seven months prior to that.

 

[Valley1320]

Raining again after bone dry & hot again since Labor Day. Late fall monsoon back. Good rain totals for me so far, but we are still in "Severe Drought" listing.

Got a friend over there bear hunting and said its raining enough where their hunting that its making it hard to get a bear rig

 

[Nameless Range]

3rd day of red flag conditions in my neck of the woods - the last two have had single digit RH. The Haystack Fire, which started on the 31st of July, smoldered for 5 weeks till a big wind took it 9 miles in an afternoon. It is all country I hike often that is nothing but beetle kill that needs to burn, but it's only a couple miles from Boulder and the houses in the WUI that surround it. On the 26th of August before there was an area closure, I hiked above it only a quarter mile from where it smoldered. Pretty much everything in the lower half of this photo torched on the 18th of Sept.

Things have relented a bit across the state with the longer nights and cooler weather, but this fire which currently sits at about 17,000 acres, and others( 3 currently burning within 15 miles of the Haystack Fire) will most certainly be fought well into October, and the drought persists.

 

[HuntNV]

I know this was talked about back in March from the threads I saw.

Does anyone have any boots on the ground knowledge regarding how bad this years drought affected habitat in Colorado for the western half of the state?

April was pretty dry according to this online tool: https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/Maps/ComparisonSlider.aspx

I am doing an OTC elk hunt and am starting to wonder how much this is going to add to the difficulty meter on finding healthy elk numbers? Obviously look for water, but I think everyone will be sitting water this year.

I have in my mind this cartoon drawing of 20 hunters with their bows, hiding in the bushes surrounding a three foot wide wallow.

 

[HuntNV]

Got a friend over there bear hunting and said its raining enough where their hunting that its making it hard to get a bear rig

I know this was talked about back in March from the threads I saw.

Does anyone have any boots on the ground knowledge regarding how bad this years drought affected habitat in Colorado for the western half of the state?

April was pretty dry according to this online tool: https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/Maps/ComparisonSlider.aspx

I am doing an OTC elk hunt and am starting to wonder how much this is going to add to the difficulty meter on finding healthy elk numbers? Obviously look for water, but I think everyone will be sitting water this year.

I have in my mind this cartoon drawing of 20 hunters with their bows, hiding in the bushes surrounding a three foot wide wallow.

We are next door in Nevada just got done with a pronghorn hunt about 1.5 hours outside of Reno and lakes were dry as a bone as were most water sources, praying for rain because a lot of animals are going to die if we don’t get some

 

[Irrelevant]

3rd day of red flag conditions in my neck of the woods - the last two have had single digit RH. The Haystack Fire, which started on the 31st of July, smoldered for 5 weeks till a big wind took it 9 miles in an afternoon. It is all country I hike often that is nothing but beetle kill that needs to burn, but it's only a couple miles from Boulder and the houses in the WUI that surround it. On the 26th of August before there was an area closure, I hiked above it only a quarter mile from where it smoldered. Pretty much everything in the lower half of this photo torched on the 18th of Sept.

Things have relented a bit across the state with the longer nights and cooler weather, but this fire which currently sits at about 17,000 acres, and others( 3 currently burning within 15 miles of the Haystack Fire) will most certainly be fought well into October, and the drought persists.

View attachment 195849

It's a sad state of affairs that I hardly notice fires under 100k acres anymore.

 

[Irrelevant]

Water year summary

 

[JLS]

Over an inch and a half of precept already this month. The ground is not yet frozen, so none of it is running off. We need a hell of a lot more to restore wetlands for waterfowl, but this round of storms has done wonders for the winter wheat and range conditions.

 

[TheTone]

Over an inch and a half of precept already this month. The ground is not yet frozen, so none of it is running off. We need a hell of a lot more to restore wetlands for waterfowl, but this round of storms has done wonders for the winter wheat and range conditions.

My yard is a complete saturated swamp. Gotta love/hate Palouse clay

 

[Irrelevant]

Depending on where you are it's going to get a lot wetter real soon.


The westslope of the Cascades are being hammered. Our big mountains should see a metric shitton of snow. 4+ feet of snow forecasted for Rainier.

 

[Hydrophilic]

Depending on where you are it's going to get a lot wetter real soon.
View attachment 201526

The westslope of the Cascades are being hammered. Our big mountains should see a metric shitton of snow. 4+ feet of snow forecasted for Rainier.

Might be a high water winter steelhead year!

 

[Hunting Wife]

Still skipping right over us so far. Precip in our forecast went away, now looks like it’s going to be 70 on Monday?!?!

We should be looking at our first stint of -20s and snow by now.