{"id":808,"date":"2026-03-30T11:00:01","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T11:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cpetzold.com\/?p=808"},"modified":"2026-04-24T16:16:03","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T16:16:03","slug":"the-west-is-burning-before-summer-even-starts-and-its-no-accident","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.cpetzold.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/30\/the-west-is-burning-before-summer-even-starts-and-its-no-accident\/","title":{"rendered":"The West Is Burning Before Summer Even Starts, and It\u2019s No Accident"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Nevada just shattered its March statewide high temperature record by 6 degrees, which is a \u201872 miles per hour in a school zone\u2019 kind of margin. And it happened during the hottest 11-year stretch in 176 years of recorded temperature tracking.<\/p>\n

A mid-March heat wave in the American West pushed temperatures in Laughlin, Nevada, to 106\u00b0F, far above the previous March record of 100\u00b0F. The fact that this happened in March is alarming, especially since it coincided with a near-total collapse of the region\u2019s snowpack. This sets the stage for an early and possibly severe wildfire season. The heat also fits a troubling trend confirmed by the World Meteorological Organization<\/a> last week: 2015 through 2025 have been the 11 warmest years ever recorded on Earth.<\/p>\n

Usually, temperature records are broken by small amounts. What happened in Nevada last month was very different. Some places broke monthly high temperature records by as much as 8 degrees. Reno had seven days above 80\u00b0F in March, compared to the previous record of just two days. \u201cIt\u2019s not just that we broke monthly records,\u201d said Nevada State Climatologist Baker Perry, \u201cbut it\u2019s by how much we broke the monthly records, and not just in one place.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Snow Drought That Wasn\u2019t in the Forecast<\/h2>\n

The heat wave didn\u2019t hit a typical winter landscape. Nevada was already experiencing what Perry calls an unprecedented snow drought. Even though winter precipitation was close to normal and there were big storms in mid-February, warm, moist air arrived soon after. This caused what the National Weather Service<\/a> called the second-highest single-day snowmelt ever recorded in the eastern Sierra, only surpassed by flooding in 1997.<\/p>\n

Normally, snow melts slowly through April and May, but this year it happened all at once in late February and early March. SNOTEL monitoring stations<\/a> across Nevada show the impact clearly: 70% of sites in northern and central Nevada now report zero inches of snowpack. That\u2019s not just low\u2014it\u2019s gone. The incidence of drought is closely correlated with rising atmospheric CO2 levels recorded at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, which is threatened with defunding<\/a> by the Trump Administration.<\/p>\n

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Atmospheric CO2 levels from 2021 to 2026. Source: N.O.A.A.<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What worries scientists most is the combination of these events. \u201cTo have these two unprecedented, exceptional events happening at once is a combination that is particularly concerning,\u201d Perry said.<\/p>\n

What This Means for Fire Season<\/h2>\n

Wildfire risk isn\u2019t only about heat. It depends on the sequence of conditions leading up to fire season, and this year\u2019s setup is especially dangerous.<\/p>\n

The snowmelt and early rains caused plants to grow weeks ahead of schedule. This early growth creates lots of fine fuels. As these plants dry out over the spring\u2014now with less moisture from snowpack\u2014they become the kindling that can fuel fast-moving fires.<\/p>\n

Truckee Meadows Fire Protection District Division Chief August Isernhagen said the early green-up could lead to conditions we haven\u2019t seen before as fire season approaches. He urged people to be even more careful than in recent drought years.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe majority of our starts, and nearly all of our catastrophic fires are human caused,\u201d Isernhagen said in a statement from the University of Nevada, Reno.<\/p>\n

Mountain forests face another challenge. Dawn Johnson, Warning Coordination Meteorologist at the NWS in Reno, explained that losing snowpack this early means heavy timber can become drought-stressed much sooner than usual, turning it into a fire hazard months earlier than normal. A cooler storm pattern expected in early April might bring some relief, but experts warn it may be too little, too late to make a real difference.<\/p>\n

Eleven Years. No Exceptions.<\/h2>\n

The Nevada heat wave wasn\u2019t an isolated event. It happened during the longest stretch of global heat ever recorded.<\/p>\n

The WMO\u2019s State of the Global Climate 2025<\/a> report, released on March 23, confirmed that every year from 2015 to 2025 is among the hottest ever recorded. Depending on the data, 2025 was either the second- or third-warmest year since records began, with temperatures about 1.43\u00b0C above pre-industrial levels. Atmospheric CO\u2082 reached its highest level in 2 million years, and ocean temperatures set a new record for the ninth year in a row.<\/p>\n

UN Secretary-General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres put the streak in stark terms: \u201cWhen history repeats itself eleven times, it is no longer a coincidence. It is a call to act.\u201d<\/p>\n

The report also introduced a new measure called Earth\u2019s energy imbalance (EEI). This tracks the difference between the energy the planet receives from the sun and the energy it sends back into space. In 2025, EEI was at its highest since records began in 1960. Surface temperatures, which get most of the attention, only show about 1% of the planet\u2019s extra heat. Over 91% is absorbed by the oceans, which have taken in the equivalent of about 18 times the world\u2019s total annual energy use each year for the past 20 years. EEI gives a clearer picture, showing that the planet is becoming more out of balance.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 2025, heatwaves, wildfires, drought, tropical cyclones, storms and flooding caused thousands of deaths, impacted millions of people and caused billions in economic losses,\u201d said WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo. She added that the changes driven by human activities \u201cwill have harmful repercussions for hundreds \u2014 and potentially thousands \u2014 of years.\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s happening in the Western U.S. matches the WMO\u2019s global findings perfectly. The report highlighted major glacier loss in 2025 along North America\u2019s Pacific coast. These events aren\u2019t separate\u2014they\u2019re both signs of the same warming trend, just showing up in different ways and times.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe seem to be entering this new era where temperatures will be significantly higher than what they were ten years ago,\u201d said climate scientist Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick of Australian National University. She explained that the changes of the past three years can only be explained by climate change.<\/p>\n

What About the Cold in the East?<\/h2>\n

This is where things get both surprising and important.<\/p>\n

If you live in the Northeast, Midwest, or Southeast, 2025 might not seem like a record-warm year. Some parts of the eastern U.S. have had cold snaps and severe winter weather that made national news. So how does that fit with 11 straight years of record global heat?<\/p>\n

This actually makes sense in climate science. Climate change doesn\u2019t warm every place at the same time. Instead, it disrupts atmospheric patterns like the polar vortex, which usually keeps cold air over the Arctic. As the Arctic warms much faster than the rest of the planet\u2014about four times the global average, according to NOAA\u2014the polar vortex<\/a> weakens and shifts, letting cold air move into areas that don\u2019t usually get it.<\/p>\n

In other words, the same forces causing record heat in Nevada are also behind the unusual cold in the eastern U.S. These aren\u2019t opposites\u2014they\u2019re both results of a destabilized climate system. Weather feels local, but our climate is shared. When the West is hot in March and the East is cold, both are signs of the same disrupted system.<\/p>\n

What You Can Do<\/h2>\n