01
The next storm
- Weekly outlook
- Watch heads-up
- Close-out
- Storm record
Counties + emergency managers
Division 01 · Post-fire debris flows
Runout Labs
The map shows what the fire did. The watch covers what comes next.
3:09 AM PST
A replay of radar from January 9, 2018: a narrow band of heavy rain crosses the Thomas Fire scar between 3:27 and 3:48 AM, over the top-ranked canyons above Montecito.
Replay, not a forecast: KVBX radar over the Thomas Fire scar · Jan 9, 2018, 3:09–3:48 AMTop-third canyons fill while ≥ 40 dBZ sits over them · 10 m USGS 3DEP
What a watch covers
The next storm, the scar's next eight years, the next fire.
02
The scar's next eight years
- Yearly re-screen
- USGS layer
03
The next fire
- New-fire note
- New-fire screen
04
The paper trail
- Monthly status
- Pre-season brief
- Year-end record
- Funding exhibits
KVBX NEXRAD · 03:40 PST Jan 9, 201836 canyons ranked · MontecitoBurned-area outline from Landsat 8 dNBR · illustrative, not the official perimeterMontecito sample screen report · page 1
How the screen works
Three inputs, ranked inside one fire.
We combine burn severity, slope and the area draining to each canyon mouth. The result ranks the canyons below that scar against each other. It isn't a probability, and it doesn't compare fires. Read the method.
Drag to turnThomas Fire, Montecito front · BAER soil burn severity · 10 m USGS 3DEP · canyons ours
Why eight years
A scar keeps changing for years.
Years 0–2. Short, intense bursts of rain on bare soil cause runoff-generated debris flows.
Years 3–8. Long, soaking rain and snowmelt on slopes losing root strength cause landslide-initiated debris flows.
Sources: Rengers et al. 2020, Landslides · Thomas et al. 2021, JGR Earth Surface · USGS western Oregon root-strength study, Landslides 2025 · Graber et al., Geosphere. Root-decay timing comes from wet conifer forests; other vegetation is untested. The eight-year watch is how we schedule coverage, not a risk estimate.
Your year, in advance
Your whole year, on one page.
Every watch starts with a 12-month page: what arrives and when, set to your storm seasons.
| Service | J | F | M | A | M | J | J | A | S | O | N | D |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Storm season | Storm season in March | Storm season in April | Storm season in May | Storm season in July | Storm season in August | Storm season in September | ||||||
| Weekly outlook | Weekly outlook in March | Weekly outlook in April | Weekly outlook in May | Weekly outlook in July | Weekly outlook in August | Weekly outlook in September | ||||||
| Pre-season brief | Pre-season brief in February | Pre-season brief in June | ||||||||||
| Monthly status | Monthly status in January | Monthly status in February | Monthly status in March | Monthly status in April | Monthly status in May | Monthly status in June | Monthly status in July | Monthly status in August | Monthly status in September | Monthly status in October | Monthly status in November | Monthly status in December |
| Yearly re-screen | Yearly re-screen in June | |||||||||||
| Year-end record | Year-end record in November |
Example: an interior scar with spring melt and summer monsoon seasons · heads-ups, close-outs and storm records arrive when storms happen
How we work
- A person approves every message.Software drafts. A person checks each one before it's sent.
- No software, no logins.Everything arrives as email, on a calendar you see in advance.
- Built on public science.USGS methods and data, credited on every page.
Sample report
See what you'd get.
The 2017 Thomas Fire, screened the way we'd screen yours, then checked against what happened on January 9, 2018.
Who it's for
Water + irrigation districts
Utilities + co-ops
Risk pools + insurers
Montecito, CA · Jan 2018 · USGS field photos (Kean et al. 2018)