AccuWeather's 2025 wildfire season forecast

AccuWeather

AccuWeather's Paul Pastelok was live on the AccuWeather Network on April 23 to discuss the 2025 wildfire season in the United States.

Transcript

00:00All right, joining me right now is AccuWeather Lee, long-range expert, meteorologist Paul Pasteluk.

00:05And, you know, Paul, you and the long-range team today issuing the summer forecast across the country.

00:13And, of course, the summer and the spring forecast here, especially for fires here.

00:18And, of course, we have the fires burning not only in New Jersey, a fire burning,

00:23but also near Packerton in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, in eastern Pennsylvania.

00:29Let's talk about the fire risk along the east coast this spring in New Jersey.

00:36And, hey, listen, we have problems in Carolinas and Florida as well.

00:39Yeah, and it's been going on all spring that we've had this risk.

00:43And the risk is still going to continue throughout the spring season, more on the moderate to stronger side

00:50as you look at the lower mid-Atlantic, the Carolinas, down into Florida.

00:53Those are the areas that are running very dry compared to average.

00:57When you look at the last several months, in fact, Florida, Orlando, for example, 40 percent of normal since January 1st.

01:05So we're in dire need of more rain in these areas.

01:07And when these fronts come through the east, they produce a lot of wind and lowering dew points.

01:13And nothing, you know, you don't have everything greened up just yet.

01:16And so that dryness, the wind factored in, is causing these fires to erupt.

01:21And, of course, man-made or electrical, you know, possibly causing some of these fires that we're seeing in New Jersey right now.

01:28You know, Paul, when I look at the fire risk for the spring and then we'll transition to the summer,

01:33what also catches my eye is west Texas and then to parts of the Four Corners area.

01:38Exactly. And they're in more of an extreme type event.

01:43And the pattern that's set up from the winter season into the spring has really launched this situation that you're seeing right now on the map.

01:52Bright red, very high to extreme setup here.

01:56And coming up this weekend with this upper-level system coming into the west coast,

02:00that's really going to pick things up as far as the fire danger goes across that same area that you just saw on the map.

02:07Well, let's stay in the southwest because as we transition into the summer months,

02:12we typically can get the fires early in the season, Paul, June and July.

02:16But then from July and August, we start talking about the monsoon coming into the southwest.

02:22What's your official forecast for that in the southwest?

02:25Because they haven't had a whole lot in the way of a monsoon the last couple of years.

02:30Exactly. And we are expecting an above-average monsoon season.

02:34Oh, that's good news.

02:35And slightly earlier, which is even better news,

02:38because we're going to see a risk of fires in the southwest all the way through the June time period.

02:44And then as we get into late June, early July, the initial moisture that comes up may not be enough.

02:50In fact, it could be worse in the situation you can get dry thunderstorms producing more fires.

02:55But as you get more into July, it really should moisten up across the southwest.

03:01And that area should start to see some relief not only from wildfire risk but from heat.

03:06And they need that water to fill the reservoirs up.

03:09And that will continue to spread into parts of southeast Utah, southwest Colorado.

03:14So the good news is a good monsoon is coming up, Bernie.

03:16Really quickly, because I do want to get to the fall forecast quickly.

03:19What about the Carolinas?

03:20I still see a dry area there, Paul.

03:23Yeah, we're still not out of the risk, especially in the Carolinas.

03:26I think Florida will improve in the month of May, especially week two and week three.

03:30We'll see more moisture in May in Florida.

03:32But the Carolinas missing out a lot of moisture coming up in that direction.

03:35Paul, we have about 30 seconds.

03:37We have to get to the southwest.

03:39And there is some concern this fall about easterly winds in California.

03:43Yeah, especially a little bit more than normal across in September.

03:48That's our concern.

03:49We do feel that there's going to be more offshore winds in September.

03:52As we get towards the end of the fall season, the peak time,

03:55that's where we may start to get moisture and that may cut off.

03:58So it's the beginning of the fall season that we're really concerned about California right now.

04:03AccuWeather League long-range expert, meteorologist Paul Pasluk.

04:06And, of course, you can read this story in its entirety on AccuWeather.com.

04:12All right, Paul Pasluk, thanks for joining us.

04:14Stay tuned.

04:14AccuWeather early continues after this.

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