The weather ultimately determines how bad our fire season will be. How dry, how hot, and for how long. Once fires do start, their size, intensity, and potential destruction will be determined by which way and how fast the wind blows.

Two large fires that have currently been burning, one in southern Utah, and one in northern Arizona (the one that destroyed the historic lodge on the north rim of the Grand Canyon), were the result of a very dry winter and spring season, and warm and dry weather in June. Once ignited by lightning, these fires blew up and ran fast with increasing winds.

In this post, I’ll review the weather in Jackson, WY from this spring and early summer, which sets up our fire season going into August. I’ll also address the question, are wildfires getting worse?

Spring and early Summer Weather

This spring was wetter than normal here in Jackson. Monthly data from the Jackson Climate Station showed a total of 5.42 inches of precipitation in March, April, and May of 2025. That’s 130-percent of the long-term average precipitation for those three months of 4.17 inches. A wet spring allows vegetation on the ground to grow taller.

June 2025 checked-in with below normal precipitation, and slightly warmer than normal temperatures. June’s total precipitation was only 0.40 inches in town, compared to the average of 1.63 inches. June’s temperatures were one degree warmer than the long-term average.

July 2025 precipitation was normal, with a total of 0.94 inches, which is exactly what Jackson’s long-term average precipitation is for July. Even though many people complained how hot it was this July, Jackson ended up one degree cooler than the long-term average. The average high temperature in July 2025 was 80 degrees, or two degrees below the average of 82 degrees. The average low was 41 degrees, which is right at average for July.

Total precipitation in town for June and July was 1.34 inches, which is only 52-percent of the average precipitation of 2.57 inches for those two months. That leaves us where we are today, with a wet spring and a dry early summer. Not an ideal set-up going into August, as far as wildfires are concerned. Despite the lack of precipitation the last two months, the hillsides are still pretty green around the Jackson Hole area in early August.

Wildfire Stats and History

Nearly every news story I read these days about wildfires quotes the same line, that “wildfires are getting worse and are becoming more frequent”. You can do a search on the Internet asking, “are wildfires getting worse”, and you will find numerous articles confirming that wildfires are burning more acres now than they were back in the early 1980’s. However, none of these articles are telling the whole story.

On March 1st of 2021 the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) website removed all wildfire data prior to 1983. NIFC stated that prior to 1983, the sources of fire data could not be confirmed and were not derived from the current reporting process. That is just a little suspicious, since those numbers had been available from NIFC for decades.

The government began keeping track of the number of wildfires and the number of acres burned each year starting in 1926. The graph provided is from the National Interagency Fire Center, it shows the complete history of the number of acres burned each year in the United States, from 1926 through 2019. I had saved a copy of this prior to it’s deletion.

NIFC’s data now starts in the early 1980’s, with 1983 and 1984 being the two lowest years on record for number of acres burned.  Since the mid 1980’s the number of acres burned has increased over the last 40 years. However, prior to the mid 1950’s wildfires were much worse than they are today.

It may also be worth noting that the frequency of wildfires, that is, the number of fires per year,  has been steady, or even dropped a little since the mid-1980’s to early 2000’s. The graph below, also from NIFC’s database, shows the number of fires each year, since 1983. The blue line is NIFC data, the orange line is from Forest Service estimates, which stopped in 1998.

The Complete History

To show the complete history, I compiled a graph of all the data on acres burned each year, from NIFC’s old and new databases for the last 99 years, from 1926 to 2024. Here it is plain to see that from the mid-1920’s to mid-1950’s tens of millions more acres burned each year in the United States than have burned in the latest 20 years. The U.S. topped 10 million acres burned in a year only 3 times in the last 10 years. Between 1926 and 1952, every single year topped 10 million acres. In 14 out of those 26 years, more than 30 million acres burned each year!

Fire Suppression

Two other factors have helped shape these statistics, first is that prior to the early 1950’s very little fire suppression was being done and wildfires were pretty much left to burn in the wilds. As the size of the Wildland Urban Interface grew through the 1990’s, with population and development in forested areas, more aggressive fire suppression was implemented to avoid wildfires getting out of control and causing damage to homes and infrastructure. This caused a massive interruption in the natural fire process for creating healthy forests.

Since the 1990’s a more balanced approach between letting it burn and full suppression has been adopted. However, occasionally fires that we try to contain will get out of our control.

The second factor shaping the stats, is the decrease in the number of acres of timber being harvested each year. The graph below shows acres of timber harvested vs.acres burned, since 1983 through 2020. Don’t blame the Spotted Owl for the uptick in acres burned, but certainly fewer acres of forest harvested makes more acres available to burn.

Current and Last Season Fires

According to NIFC, as of August 1st, 2025, there have been 40,945 wildfire incidents, and over 3.2 million acres burned. The average number of incidents per year, since 1983, is 69,540 and the number of acres burned per year is about 5.2 million acres. According to NIFC, despite a few large fires this season, so far, fewer square miles have burned this year than average.

In 2024, there were 64,897 fires that burned a total of 8.9 million acres. Of those fires, lightning started 6,935 of them, burning over 4.2 million acres. Humans caused 57,962 fires, burning just almost 4.7 million acres.

Lightning caused fires will be left to burn, if in a remote enough area. Human caused fires are usually extinguished, especially if there is any threat to homes or infrastructure.

The loss of the structures on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon is a good example of a natural fire, started by lightning, that was let to burn in an uninhabited area to improve forest health.  But a shift in wind direction and an increase in speed quickly turned that story into a horrific loss of ranger residences and the Grand Canyon Lodge.

Look Beyond a Single Cause

Decide for yourself if you think wildfires are getting worse or more frequent. But the data in no way suggests that. By taking a more comprehensive look at our wildfire and forest management history more accurate story can be told than the narrative the media hypes these days. It would seem that everything disastrous that happens with the weather anymore is a result of climate change. That is ostensibly a very narrow view of of a much more complex subject. When it comes to wildfires there are a multitude of factors involved.

Post by meteorologist Jim Woodmencey

In the summer months a good portion of our precipitation here in Jackson Hole, and throughout most of the Mountain West will be produced by thunderstorms. So, to help you avoid being caught out in a thunderstorm, and its associated lightning, I’ll give you a few hints on what to watch for in the sky, along with a few simple weather products to consult each day.

Typical Thunderstorms

Even on those days that begin with clear blue skies, puffy cumulus clouds can appear in the afternoon. These are caused by convection, or the afternoon heating of the ground that causes air to rise. Heating the ground causes the atmosphere to become unstable.

As the air rises higher into the atmosphere, it cools. Whatever moisture that is contained in the atmosphere, in the form of invisible water vapor, is then condensed into water droplets, water droplets coalesce together to form clouds.

If there is enough moisture and instability in the atmosphere, then those harmless, puffy, cotton ball-looking clouds might appear around noontime. By mid to late afternoon, they may grow into full-blown thunderstorms. If there is not enough moisture or instability in the atmosphere, then all we’ll see are harmless puffy clouds.

Clouds that Grow and Gather

Here are a few things to watch for to determine if those puffy clouds are going to develop into thunderstorms:

1) The first puffs of cumulus appear before noontime.

2) Cumulus clouds growing taller and begin gathering together.

3) The bases of the clouds get progressively darker, an indication that the clouds are growing taller.

4) The taller the cloud, the darker the bases, and the larger the area that the cumulus clouds cover, and thus the greater the potential for thunderstorms.

That is the progression of typical afternoon thunderstorms. However, thunderstorms do not only develop during the afternoon hours, there will be plenty of days that don’t fit this more typical pattern.

Untypical Thunderstorms

Storm systems, otherwise known as low-pressure systems, periodically roll across the Rockies during the summer months. Storm systems not only bring additional moisture and instability, but they also provide extra lift to the atmosphere, giving an extra boost to the vertical motion that allows thunderstorms to blossom.

Cold fronts are usually associated with low-pressure systems. Cold fronts are very efficient at providing extra lift in the atmosphere. When a cold front is passing through, more intense thunderstorms are always likely.

The last thing to be on the lookout for, is the summer monsoon. The Desert Southwest Monsoon is a seasonal wind flow pattern that brings very moist and unstable air up from central Mexico to the Four-Corners Region. Periodically, some of that moisture reaches as far north as Northwest Wyoming.

The important point to make here is, a low-pressure system, a cold front passing through, or monsoon moisture are each capable of generating thunderstorms at any time of the day or night.

Check the Forecast and Maps

Check the forecast each day to see if there is any mention of thunderstorms, even a small probability, like a 20-percent chance can be significant. A thunderstorm automatically implies the potential for lightning and may also portend a potential for heavy downpours of rain, or hail, or strong gusty winds. Also check the daily forecast weather map to see if there are any fronts nearby.

There are two other tools you can use for short term forecasting, to see if there is any lightning occurring nearby or upstream of your location. One is a Lightning Strike Map, the other is the GeoColor Satellite image with lightning flashes. Both products are available on the Satellite and Radar page of mountainweather.com

Keeping an eye out for developing thunderstorms is the first step to staying safe in the outdoors this summer. Nest we’ll look at some lightning safety tips and what you can do to reduce your chances of getting zapped if you do get caught out in a thunderstorm.

Lightning Safety

It’s always a crapshoot trying to forecast precisely when and where lightning will strike. Here I’ll share some facts about lightning and how to evade getting zapped in case you do find yourself unable to get to a completely safe location.

First thing is, most of the lightning that occurs with a thunderstorm stays in the cloud. About 75% of all lightning occurs within the cloud, only 25% of lightning produced in a thunderstorm with strike the ground. But those intra-cloud lightning flashes are a good indicator that ground strikes may be eminent.

How Lightning Can Hurt You

A single lightning bolt generates up to around 100 million volts of electricity, for a split second. During that split second, the temperature of a lightning bolt can reach 54,000-degrees Fahrenheit, which is about five times hotter than the temperature of the sun. There are a several ways that the electrical energy and heat from lightning can hurt you.

First, is being hit by a “Direct Strike”. The odds of this are very small, however, if you were unlucky enough to take a direct hit, it would be game-over, right then and there.

Second, would be through “Conduction”. Electrical energy travels through all metal objects, but also through graphite, carbon-fiber, and water. During electrical storms you should avoid direct contact with wire or chain-link fences, your fishing pole, hiking poles, tent poles, your bicycle or boat. Think of sticking your finger in a light socket, multiplied by about one-million times.

The third method by which lighting can hurt you is from what is known as “Side-flash”. The heat & electrical current that emanates outward through the air from a nearby lightning strike is intense enough to can cause cardiac arrest, concussive injuries, severe burns, and/or nerve damage.

Lastly, and the most common way of being hurt by lightning, is through “Ground Currents”. When lightning strikes the ground, the electrical current is carried outward, radially, in all directions through the ground. If that current reaches you it can travel up through your body, doing damage to vital organs. Cardiac arrest, burns, and severe nerve damage are also possible via ground current.

Direct strikes and conduction account for about 20-percent of all lightning casualties. Side-flash accounts for about 30-percent of injuries and fatalities. Ground currents alone account for the other 50-percent of all lightning injuries and fatalities.

Safe Havens from Lightning

The safest place to be during a thunderstorm is in a building or a car. A “building” means a 4-walled structure with a foundation and grounded electrical and plumbing. A picnic shelter or large tent may keep you out of the rain, but your lightning exposure is the same as standing out in the open.

A vehicle is the next best safe have. Contrary to what you might think, it is not the tires on your car that insulate you from te electrical current, it is the metal frame and body of the car that dissipate the electrical energy around you. A motorcycle or bicycle do not offer this same “halo” of protection.

If there is not a building or car to retreat to, get to lower ground. Get off any ridgetops. A study done in Colorado showed that lightning strikes the ridgetops 7 times more often than adjacent valleys.

You should also get off the water if you are on a lake or river. If you can, get to a grove of trees that are of similar height to wait it out. Do not run for the biggest, lone tree to get out of the rain. As soon as you can see lightning or hear thunder, you should be looking to seek shelter immediately.

There is not much we can do to protect ourselves from a direct hit or a side-flash. Conduction is something we can protect ourselves from, by not being in contact with any objects that can conduct electricity, including water. Be aware, that even other people can conduct electricity, like when standing in a crowd.

Don’t Huddle-up

Lightning that strikes nearby will generate intense heat and electricity. Think of a lightning bolt like a hand grenade. The standard U.S. Army grenade has a kill radius of around 25 feet and a casualty (injury) radius of roughly 50-feet. A group of people, standing close together, will result in more casualties.

Sheep & cattle often die in large groups after a single lightning bolt hits nearby because they group together. Sometimes, lining up along a wire fence.

When lightning is present, don’t huddle together. Instead, spread out 25 to 50 feet apart. That way, if someone does go down after the explosion, others in the group can give aid.

If you find yourself outside with no good place to hide when lightning is visibly nearby, then you can reduce your chances of injury from ground current by just standing still with both feet together. The current that travels through the ground will take the path of least resistance and can go up one leg, through your body and exit out the other leg.  By keeping your feet together, you might take a bump from the ground current, but your vital organs will be spared, hopefully.

Sitting Indian style on the ground with your legs crossed is also acceptable. Lying down, like in a tent for instance, is not acceptable, as too many different parts of your body are contacting the ground. And by the way, that camp pad does not insulate you from ground currents.

In Summary, if you can’t, “Get indoors when thunder roars”, as the National Weather Service slogan says, then:

1) Get to the best un-exposed location you can.

2) Get away from any metal objects.

3) Spread everyone in your group at least 25 feet apart.

4) Stand with both feet together and wait it out.

Post by meteorologist Jim Woodmencey

I know it’s the time of year when everyone is thinking about spring and eager for warm and sunny weather, but it is also time to do my recap of the winter season. In this week’s column, I’ll review Jackson’s weather from December through March, to see how this winter compared to last winter and to the long-term averages.

If you want the short story, Winter 2024-25 was snowier and wetter than normal and overall, temperatures were warmer than normal in town this past winter. The mountains also had above average snowfall again this winter.

Town Snow and Water

December of 2024 started out with above average snowfall in town, yet below average precipitation. The Town of Jackson Climate Station recorded 30 inches of snowfall for the month and 1.23 inches of water in that snow. That is a big disparity, especially when considering that most of that snow fell at relatively warm temperatures. I suspect some of the precipitation, or the water content of that snow, was missed or mis-read. Nevertheless, snowfall in December was well above the long-term historic average of 17 inches. The water content was below the average of 1.52 inches.

January 2025 was the driest month of this past winter, with only 4.2 inches of snow recorded in town and only 0.36 inches of water in that snow. Compared to the historic average of 19 inches of snow in January, along with 1.50 inches of water.

February kicked in with well above normal snowfall and water content in town. February 2025 saw 25.2 inches of snowfall in town, with 2.60 inches of water. Compared with the average for February of 14 inches of snowfall and 1.14 inches of water.

March added another 21.2 inches of snowfall and 2.21 inches of water. Compared to the average in March of 11 inches of snowfall and 1.23 inches of water.

Total snowfall for the four months was 80.6 inches, well above the long-term average winter snowfall of 61 inches in town. The total water content this winter was 6.4 inches, compared to an average winter amount of 5.39 inches.

The previous winter, 2023-24, the Town of Jackson had a total of 96.2 inches of snowfall and 7.11 inches of water. That winter started out with a dry December, a snowier than normal January, followed by a big February and record-breaking March snowfall in town.

Temperatures and Snow Depths

January was the only month this winter that was colder than the long-term averages, it was 6 degrees colder than the average mean temperature in January. December was 5 degrees warmer than average; February was 4 degrees warmer, and March was 2 degrees warmer than average.

What we observed this winter was that each snowstorm was usually followed by a warmup, or some rain in the valley. This prevented that snowfall from accumulating to any great depth over time. This winter the maximum snow depth at the Jackson Climate Station reached 15 inches on February 14th, 2025. Oddly enough, historically the average snow depth on that date is 14.5 inches and the average maximum snow depth in the winter is 15 inches in town.

Our perceptions of how much snow should be on the ground in town during the winter may have become a little skewed because of the depths we have seen in recent winters.

Last winter the maximum snow depth reached 32 inches on March 4th, 2024, which tied the record for that date. The winter before that, 2022-23, the maximum snow depth in town was 34 inches on March 11th, 2023, which broke the record for that date.

And, it’s no surprise that there is little to no snow on the ground at the Jackson Climate Station by mid-April, the long-term average snow depth by April 15th is less than half an inch.

Mountain Snow

Snowfall in the mountains this winter, from December through March, ended up above average and was just a little more than the snowfall total from the previous season.

The Rendezvous Bowl study plot at around the 9,600-foot elevation at the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort tallied 365 inches for the four months, December 2024 through March 2025. The previous season, 2023-24 had 359 inches. This season and last season were both above the long-term average at the Rendezvous Bowl site of 311 inches, for that four-month period.

Settled snow depths at the Rendezvous Bowl site on April 1st this year were very similar to last year, on April 1st, 2025, the snowpack measured 114 inches deep. On April 1st, 2024, it was at 116 inches. The average snow depth at Rendezvous Bowl on April 1st is 104 inches.

This now marks three seasons in a row with above average winter snowfall in both the mountains and the valley.

Post by meteorologist Jim Woodmencey.

Content originally appeared in the Jackson Hole News & Guide on April 16th, 2025.