We had some serious brush fires at Camp Bullis and on the city's south side over this past weekend, and the State Climatologist says grass fires will become a lot more common as the winter moves on, and we may be in the leading stages of another drought, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
John Nielsen-Gammon, a professor of atmospheric science at Texas A&M University, says the coming dry period is being triggered by La Nina, a weather pattern which leads to cooler weather over the South Pacific.
He says the result for us is to push the jet stream, which separates the cold and wet north and the warm and dry south further to the north.
"Which, for the winter time, puts us on the dry side of the jet," he told News Radio 1200 WOAI. "That means we tend to have a drier winter during La Nina than we usually do."
And Nielsen-Gammon says Texas is already drying out a lot quicker than is usual for mid November. He says the latest Drought Monitor report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows 15% of Texas in some level of drought today, compared with just 5% only a week ago.
"This year, unfortunately, it seems to be even worse," he said. "We have had a relatively dry September and October, and November is, unfortunately, off to a very dry start. So we have a dryer than expected to start to a winter that is expected to be dry already."
The San Antonio area has received normal to above average rainfall since the major drought of 2011-2014 was broken by drenching rains in late 2014.