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Dry winter, record summer heat, historic lightning event leads to unprecedented California fire season

The 2020 California fire season has seen more acres burned than any other year and the largest wildfire in the state's history.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California has seen an unprecedented and historic fire season so far in 2020. Climate trends from Cal-Adapt have shown substantial fire growth expected in the coming decades, especially for northern California as we enter a drier warmer world.

As of September 14, more than 3 million acres have burned throughout the state. 

The largest fire burning right now is the August Complex, which happens to now be the largest wildfire in California history burning over 755,000 acres.

Credit: kxtv

Record-Breaking Summer

Northern California was already coming off a dry rainy season and then entered record-breaking summer temperatures. 

The National Weather Service (NWS) in Sacramento just released the meteorological summer (June-August) assessment with Sacramento and Fairfield reporting the warmest summer on record.

Credit: NWS Sacramento

Number of 100° Days (June - August)

The number of 100-degree days for the summer ranked among the Top 10 on record for Redding and Downtown Sacramento. 

Overall, the number of 100-degree days remained around average in June, below average in July (except for Redding and Downtown Sacramento), and above average in August.

Credit: NWS Sacramento
Credit: NWS Sacramento
Credit: NWS Sacramento

Record-Breaking August

Many August records were also broken, including several temperature records tied or broken from August 14 -19 during the long heat wave that occurred in mid-August.

The hottest day occurred on August 16, when some Valley locations climbed above 110 degrees and shattered their high temperatures records. Downtown Sacramento, Stockton, and Modesto had their warmest high temperatures on record for the month of August on the 16th.

Credit: NWS Sacramento

Overnight cloud cover kept lows quite warm August 15 - 16. This led to warm morning lows and, as the skies cleared, a very warm afternoon. 

When calculating the average temperatures, August 16 was among the Top 3 hottest days on record for Downtown Sacramento, Stockton, and Modesto by daily average.

Credit: NWS Sacramento

Dry Lightning Event

The clouds that blanketed Northern California, were part of a weakening tropical system called Fausto. 

This weather feature moved north near the coast and created several rounds of dry thunderstorms from August 16 - 18. More than 6,000 cloud-to-ground lightning strikes were recorded in California, including 1,463 strikes across interior NorCal. 

These lightning strikes started hundreds of wildfires across the region.

Credit: NWS Sacramento
Credit: NWS Sacramento

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