Sacramento temperature blanket 2024: Temperatures heat up, and a wildfire outlook for coming months

With summer quickly approaching, we’re starting to see a familiar rash of sweltering temperatures — and with that, a reminder of the peak wildfire season to come.

Those temperatures quickly showed up in our temperature blanket. We’ve added two new colors since our last update in early May: A celery green, which represents weekly temperature averages in the 70s, and a maize yellow representing temperature averages in the 80s. And with hotter days ahead, we wouldn’t be surprised to see a third color join the blanket in the next month or so. 

We’re creating a Sacramento temperature blanket. Here’s why (and what that is)

High temperatures broke records in parts of Northern California earlier this month. On June 6, the Sacramento International Airport reported a record-breaking high temperature of 101 degrees. That surpassed the previous record set for that day, which was 98 degrees in 2002. The National Weather Service in Sacramento has issued a series of excessive heat warnings as a result, which coincided with the opening of local cooling centers.  

Idamis Shoemaker, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Sacramento, said high temperatures at the beginning of the month were definitely hotter than usual.

“It was certainly unusual for this time of year to be seeing temperatures as much as … 15 to 20 degrees above normal,” Shoemaker said. “But not completely out of the realm of things that we've seen in the past.”

Even though current temperatures are high, she said we’re not exactly in a heatwave. During a heatwave, temperatures stay high for an extended period of time and don’t usually cool down overnight. She said we’ve seen some overnight relief in recent days. 

Then there’s wildfires. The National Interagency Fire Center currently reports below average probabilities for significant wildfires in Northern California during June and July. And although the Corral Fire near Tracy captured attention earlier this month, experts say grass fires like that one aren’t unusual this time of year. 

Craig Clements, director of the Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center at San Jose State, said rain and snowfall seen earlier this year helped bring moisture to fuels like shrubs and dead leaves that, if dry, would normally feed a fire. 

“Because of the precipitation, the fuel moisture is going to be high for a longer duration through the summer,” he said. “That's important to keep fire risks down, because fire danger is a function of the fuel moisture.” 

He said shorter stints of high temperatures won’t necessarily change the fire outlook for the season. But back-to-back extended heatwaves could cause an issue. 

“That could really drive out fuels and make conditions more critical for large fires to occur,” Clements said. 

As always, this season’s fire outlook isn’t set in stone. Clements added that weather patterns in upcoming weeks will help researchers like himself better predict fire behavior later in the season. The National Interagency Fire Center updates its report accordingly at the beginning of each month.