A rising number of communities across the country are facing an insurability crisis stemming from vulnerability to fires and hurricanes. How insurable (and thus how marketable) is a house that does not have a reliable source of water?
Kye Biscayne, FL recognized the flooding risks and spent millions designing a new plan. They just abandoned that plan. https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/key-biscayne-spent-8m-climate-083000156.html The injection well option will not work as it is designed for the regular kind of rains Coastal Florida gets, not the massive, stagnant downpours we are starting to see. The palm trees will die slowly after repeated saltwater flooding. As in every place where the climate crisis is being felt now, it will be impossible for the quality of life to evade suffering. We can't keep things as they are now and hope to address the current and future problems. Things will be different, one way or the other. I would rather deal with the issues now instead of putting it off and making it more difficult and more expensive for my kids and grandkids.
The first of the month always brings a new 4-month fire potential outlook from the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise. This is our first look at August. May's map is notable for the SE and FL. It's not unusual to have a few swamp fires this time of year, but to have that large swath of red is not at all the norm. Also, Minnesota fires can be a bear, particularly in lake country. Mosquitoes there are a pain. AZ and NM typically have their time of intense fire in May and June, so that's not surprising. It does, however, often mean that the cumulative fatigue of firefighters who start responding in May becomes debilitating in September and October if not managed well--but looking forward, there does not seem to be a good time to get folks the rest they will need. June brings East Texas and LA into play, while the SE eases a bit. Still, lots of fuel and people in FL and East TX. Any large fire will rapidly increase in complexity. OR, WA, and NorCal come online 4-6 weeks before normal. Large fires in heavy fuels could be on the landscape for months. Pretty much all of CO that doesn't look like Kansas will have elevated fire danger and like other populated places, Front Range fires are tough. This July map looks like some past August maps, but with the addition of the Gulf states. Given what will be going on in the West, particularly if we get a good lightning bust or two, having to send resources to the Gulf Coast will significantly strain everyone. Following that July map, August looks brutal. Crews will be strung out and hitting the wall mentally and physically. By this time, we'll likely have had some bad outcomes, and August typically sees 2-3 big dry lightning days across NorCal, the PNW, and the Northern Rockies. We'll all be hoping for some gentle tropical moisture in the Gulf. Keep in mind these maps only show above normal fire potential. The white areas are expected to be near normal, which in the case of places like SoCal, Alaska, and Montana, can still mean a substantial number of fires that demand resource commitments.
That is Grand Junction, where I live now, where the Colorado River meets the Gunnison (hence, “grand junction”) . What the report is basically saying is all of Colorado had a terrible snow season; otherwise the rivers on the western slope wouldn’t be so low. It’s going to be a bad Peach year, here. And everything downstream into Arizona will be bad this year.
Enjoy your orange juice now, as it may not be there in the near future. https://slate.com/business/2026/04/florida-state-orange-food-houses-real-estate.html It's a very long article and all of it is worth reading. Climate, pesticides, fertilizer, greed, and a host of other factors are at play. It's a warning shot.
UK and Ireland about to set a heat record for May. It's so much greater than the previous record that there is essentially no question about it in the forecast. It would also be a record for June.
Oh, I still love Boulder, and might move back. But living on this side of the divide makes getting around the state much easier (plus Moab), except for when you need to go to DIA. It wasn’t an option when I traveled for work a lot, but this has always been the plan. Well,,, Aspen is the plan
