Publication: CNN

UCLA Expert: Daniel Swain: Assistant Researcher and Climate Specialist, Institute of the Environment and Sustainability

Synopsis: With vast stretches of desert that give way to towering, snow-capped mountains or the waters of the Pacific Ocean, California’s landscape has always been alluring. But it is this very climate — where dry summers and wet winters provide the perfect conditions for tourism and agriculture — that’s also the state’s vulnerability.

UCLA News: More important than the amount of moisture in the ground right now is what’s there at the end of winter, Swain said. “What’s concerning is that now, in a warming climate, even in some of the wet years, we’re seeing significant or even elevated severe fire activity because of how dry and warm it gets in the intervening months.” If dry and relatively warm conditions form over the coming months, Swain said that could substantially offset the gains that recent snow and rain storms brought in recent weeks. And dry conditions, in concert with low humidity and extreme heat, are a recipe for a destructive wildfire season.

Read more at CNN.