Southern Arizona has an above-normal fire potential this month and next.
In July and August, fire professionals will pay close attention to Northern California and Nevada.
The heavy precipitation this winter has helped most areas recover from severe drought conditions, However, Ed Delgado, the Fire Center’s program manager for predictive services, said this is a double-edge sword for Southern California.
This is especially noticeable in the lower elevations of Southern California.
But the drought has left the timber areas extremely damaged, he added.
Trees are still suffering from lack of moisture and many have died.
“The [lower] fine fuels can carry fire into the timber,” Delgado said.
“In Southern California, we’ve had five to six years of very extreme dry conditions.
A lot of mortality has occurred in the timber areas.” The grass crop has the potential to carry the fire into the stressed forests.
The Opera Fire near the city of Riverside was 1,350 acres and was 75 percent contained as of Monday morning.

Drought conditions affecting planting season.
The late winter and early spring months of 2017 brought weather less than ideal for planting.
South Alabama Planting Update Alabama Extension crops specialist William Birdsong said rain is needed to really kick off the planting season in the Wiregrass.
“Dry soil conditions have hindered planting here as well,” Birdsong said.
“The planted corn looks very good and farmers are spraying to control weeds.
Producers are also making fertilizer applications.” Most of the corn in the Wiregrass area has irrigation, and farmers have already begun watering.
Farmers are hopeful this year, but getting a spring planting rain is critical to the beginning of this crop season.
Print Article Sponsored Links .
EverQuote Insurance QuotesScottown, Ohio: This Brilliant Company Is Disrupting a $200 Billion IndustryEverQuote Insurance Quotes LowerMyBillsCapitol Hill Gives Homeowners Who Owe Less Than $300-625k A Once-In-A-Lifetime Mortgage BailoutLowerMyBills Vikings: Free Online GameThis game kills boredom once and for all!Vikings: Free Online Game History In OrbitArchaeleogists Make A Discovery That Leaves Them SpeechlessHistory In Orbit DermalMedix Skin CareCan Doctor’s New Discovery Really Make Foot Calluses Vanish?DermalMedix Skin Care Elvenar – Free Online GameI bet you’re gonna love this game 🙂 Build your city!Elvenar – Free Online Game Sponsored Ellen Shocks LGBT Community & Confirms She is Moving on Many knew what Ellen’s plan was, but no one expected it to leak like this…
Learn More Sponsored by Freestyle Today Report ad

Poof!
Abundant winter and spring rains have decimated large regions of drought that afflicted the nation.
In October, the start of the water year, drought covered 84 percent of the Golden State.
Storm after storm crashed into the West Coast off the Pacific Ocean during the winter and spring months, unloading copious amounts of low elevation rain and high elevation snow.
Recall that in the fall, severe drought afflicted portions of Alabama, Georgia, the western Carolinas and Tennessee, intensifying wildfires that erupted in the region.
Only patchy areas of drought now remain in the Lower 48, most notably in Florida, Georgia and Alabama, an area from central Virginia to central Maryland, including the District, and extreme southwest Arizona and Southern California.
But the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center forecasts “likely removal” of the drought in Florida in the summer because of frequent sea breeze thunderstorms that tend to form in the afternoon.
This area may become prone to wildfires as the summer wears on — much like it was last year.
While drought is all but gone in most other parts of the United States, unusually wet conditions have replaced it.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Extremes Index, which expresses the percentage of the nation dealing with abnormal weather, ranks highest in recorded history (for the period spanning January to March).

When deciding what crops to grow during a season, growers look at several factors.
But, extension agronomist Stephen Kaffka, and his team at UC Davis, including project scientist Nic George, explored growing cool season crops in the same areas.
Kaffka’s team looked at growing canola and camelina.
There are many new varieties of canola and camelina.
Most camelina varieties are new to cultivation in the United States.
Why did Kaffka’s team decide to research oilseed crops?
"California’s climate is similar to southern Australia, where cool-season crops are grown primarily on natural rainfall in winter," say Kaffka and George.
Canola varieties developed for Australia have shorter growing season than most commercially available spring-type canola varieties grown in the rest of North America.
The researchers also carefully recorded variables about the fields and seasonal growing conditions, like the physical and chemical properties of the soil, the amount of rainfall that year, and how much irrigation was used.
Canola and Camelina as New Crop Options for Cool-Season Production in California.

Lack of rain over the autumn, winter and early spring has left some rivers and reservoirs,particularly in the south and west, with dwindling levels.
Until now water companies have played down talk of hosepipe bans, but as the dry weather continues the public has now been warned that restrictions could be on the way in some areas unless reservoir levels are replenished by prolonged rainfall.
Water supplier Affinity, which covers large areas of the south-east of England, says it is "monitoring the situation closely with clear plans in place".
"January to March saw rainfall 50 to 70 per cent below average in our region" the company said.
"We have not seen the rise in groundwater levels we expected, and some rivers have seen flows decrease."
A spokesman for Southern Water said: "The winter of 2016-2017 was drier than average, particularly in the months leading up to Christmas.
Water companies say work has started with farmers to reduce the impact of the continuing dry weather as summer approaches.
Environment Agency spokesman George Leigh said some rivers, ground waters and reservoirs are lower than normal for the time of year.
But South East Water’s head of water resources Lee Dance said that while the winter has been drier than usual, the company does not envisage water shortages this summer.
"A continued lack of rainfall could lead to water restrictions."

Recent rains ease local drought concerns.
Now, those concerns have since been subdued after a few wet weeks during March and more precipitation expected to come.
The long-term average precipitation for the month is 2.05 inches.
Guinan also said some locations in northeast Missouri received a total of about six inches of precipitation between October and March.
“Just within a few weeks some areas have received as much precipitation that they had received in five months,” Guinan said.
Over the next week, Guinan said he expects the northeast Missouri area to get more precipitation, which he said is a good sign as we move forward into spring.
Balliew explained the city does have a drought plan and the city manager can authorize reasonable restrictions on city water if there is a drought.
Balliew said during that period “Kirksville was never in jeopardy of running out of any water.” During this winter, Balliew said water levels at the Hazel Creek Reservoir dropped about 33 inches, while Forest Lake dropped about 24 inches.
After recent rains, Balliew said Hazel Creek has gained 18 inches and Forest Lake is full.
“The fact that we had no moisture during the winter at all and we supplied the entire city and county through the whole winter on that one lake and only dropped (33 inches) — there’s some places in that lake that’s 70-feet deep — so, we’ve got plenty of water,” Balliew said.

Wet winter and spring bust Montana drought.
In July 2016, a dry spring and the early melt of a below-average snowpack in the months prior resulted in 10 Montana counties being in extreme drought.
In January it was a little better but not by much.
The same storms that slammed California would head northeast to Montana, but that’s not the whole story of our drought reduction.
Many storms coming from the Pacific this year were quite strong and packed a lot of moisture.
This led to one official from Big Sky Resort in an interview with The Weather Channel describing this year’s snowpack as "coastal snow".
It’s good for the health of the snowpack, and it’s a promising sign as we get ready to fill reservoirs across the state.
Moisture totals are well above average, some of the wettest years ever, for Kalispell and Missoula.
The wettest storms have had a tendency to track into northwestern rather than southwestern Montana all winter and spring.
Butte’s rainfall this month is actually a little bit less than on April 16 of 2016.The Hyalite drainage near Bozeman is already suffering from low snowpack.

Drought conditions improve, but still linger.
The state’s climatologist, Mary Stampone, who is an associate professor of geography at the University of New Hampshire, said that surface water – river, streams and lakes – are doing well, which is easy to see passing by those body of waters.
What is difficult to see, but what is measured, is ground water — like wells and aquifers.
Kernen said that rain today can take months before it drains down and recharges the ground water.
While the Stampone said recent rain has “definitely helped” the drought conditions, she is “not confident” the state will be lifted out of the drought designation this summer.
“We don’t have a distinct wet or dry season,” she said.
While we don’t know how much rain we will receive this spring and summer, “we are guaranteed to get warmer over the next few months,” she said.
“We know we will increase the outputs of moisture – we just don’t know what the inputs will be.” While many of area municipalities water supplies are doing better, especially for those with surface water reservoirs, households and business who depend on wells have had more challenges.
Sometimes, the ground is too cold in the winter to allow the water to trickle down to recharge the ground water supply.
The form can be found on the homepage of the DES’ website, www.des.nh.gov under the “What’s New” tab.

"Their caterpillars defoliated 27,000 acres in Rhode Island in the spring of 2015, but even though we had winter moths everywhere last year and I saw a zillion eggs, they caused almost zero defoliation."
Faubert believes last year’s strange winter and spring weather negated what she expected to be a dire season for winter moth defoliation.
Winter moth eggs typically hatch during a warm spell in April, but last year they began hatching during a warm period in late March.
With little defoliation occurring last year from winter moths, Faubert said it’s possible that there will be fewer adult moths flying around in the next month.
"Defoliation is very stressful to trees," Faubert said.
The females crawl up tree trunks to lay their eggs.
In an experiment she conducted last year, Faubert placed two tree bands, separated by about a foot, around one tree.
One strategy Faubert is deploying to control winter moth populations is the release of a tiny parasitic fly that lays its eggs on tree leaves.
When the winter moth caterpillar consumes the eggs while eating the leaves, the eggs hatch inside the caterpillar and the fly larva eat it from the inside out.
Faubert released the flies in seven locations in Rhode Island between 2011 and 2015, and she hopes to soon see signs that it is beginning to work.

N.H. Drought Was Good for Moose.
Preliminary numbers from a project that puts tracking collars on moose show that only one of the calves — the most vulnerable group — died from winter ticks this year.
Project leaders are still watching with caution, as winter ticks are in the adult stage in April and are feeding heavily.
It was 71 last year.
Permits also are down to 80 in Vermont, from 165 last year.
Maine authorities want to cut the number of moose permits to 2,080, 60 less than last year.
Vermont, which joined the study this year and didn’t have drought issues as serious as New Hampshire, has seen five of its 30 collared calves die, so far.
Some feel it’s time to stop moose hunting, period.
“Why would you threaten it further?” Moose population densities are taken into account in all hunting areas.
That will have a bigger impact … We could stop (hunting) tomorrow, and what’s going to happen to these animals will continue to happen.”