Operational Implications of Model Predicted Low-Level Moisture and Winds Prior to the New Year' s Day 2006 Wildfire Outbreak in the Southern Plains

Intensifying drought conditions over much of the Southern Plains contributed to devastating wildfires in Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico during the winter of 2005/06. A particularly intense episode of widespread and damaging wind-driven wildfires across the region on New Year' s Day was associated with the passage of a mid-latitude cyclone. The combination of damaging winds, blinding dust, smoke, and wildfires during the holiday weekend resulted in 2 deaths and at least 20 injuries. Two communities in Texas were virtually destroyed, and property losses exceeded $25 million. Prior to this high-impact event, numerical weather prediction models provided poor guidance for several meteorological fields critical to predicting fire behavior. Output from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction's Global Forecast System (GFS), and especially the North American Mesoscale (NAM) model, underestimated 10 m sustained wind speeds by up to 15 kt, overestimated 2 m relative humidity with absolute errors as high as 25%, and failed to predict a frontal passage that adversely affected firefighting operations at major wildfire burn sites. This paper will document these large model errors leading up to the New Year' s Day wildfire outbreak, and will describe how forecasters in the affected region improved upon model guidance to enhance services prior to, and during, this dangerous event.