Last week, I mentioned keeping an eye on the wildfires in California. The reason is that the more California burns the more rain or snow we will get. Okay, how did I come up with that theory. You have to go all the way back to Earth Science class in ninth grade and the formation of clouds.

We have clouds around almost all the time, but in order for them to produce precipitation they need condensation nuclei. Water requires a non-gaseous surface to make the transition from a vapor to a liquid, the process called condensation. Condensation nuclei are small particles that aerosol water droplets attach to in the formation of rain or snow. Without the condensation nuclei we just get humid conditions.

Just like dew forming in the morning or frost in the winter, the water droplets need something to attach to like your windshield. The California wildfires are affecting our weather now by adding more condensation nuclei than would normally occur. The smoke particles from the fires are so small that they float up into the lower atmosphere where they just wait for moisture to attach.

Now the Santa Anna winds are sending most of the smoke down the coast of California and over Mexico. There is not much moisture over Mexico but then the particles go out over the Gulf of Mexico and there the magic happens. Storms start to flare up and move up from the southeast to northeast up the Appliacian Mountains.

The last four weeks we have had numerious heavy rainfalls and now with the arctic air moving down from Canada that precipitation is turning to snow. As such, I think it is going to be a sure bet that we will have a white Christmas, but I think we are going to have a white Thanksgiving as well.

As long as California keeps burning we will keep having above average precipitation. And if the cold air from Canada is in the mix as well, we will have much higher snow totals for November and December.

Everything that happens to the west of us affects our weather and right now the wildfires in California are going to make for a very wet start to the beginning of winter.