Climate change

Inside Climate News  - Colorado’s top wildfire officials said they expect a significantly increased risk of wildfire this summer—and while they’ll partner with neighboring states as much as they can, resources for fighting the blazes will be tested.

A dismal snowpack this winter is likely to leave a parched landscape and tinderbox conditions from Colorado’s thickly forested ski mountains to its grassy eastern plains. Officials here are anticipating an exceptionally dire next few months in their state and beyond. 

“The increased fire risk extends to the multi-state region,” Colorado’s Democratic governor, Jared Polis, said during the state’s annual wildfire outlook briefing in Broomfield on April 30, where officials laid out Colorado’s 2026 Wildfire Preparedness Plan. 

The upcoming summer will be challenging across the West, he said, with an “elevated fire risk” threatening Utah, New Mexico and Arizona, alongside Colorado. 

Inside Climate Change -   In a little-noticed memo early last year, Illinois scientists made a dire prediction. “Bulletin 76,” a communication from University of Illinois researchers, warned that intense rain made worse by climate change was going to get a lot more severe in the next 25 years.

“What is considered safe and adequate today may not hold true in the future,” they wrote of the threat to homes, buildings and people.

The threat has been building for years. Over the past century in Chicago, the likelihood of heavy rainstorms has increased sevenfold. These storms can drop more than 8.5 inches of rain in 24 hours.

Designed decades ago, Chicago’s sewers can handle just 2 inches in that short period of time before flooding becomes likely.

That means every neighborhood in Chicago is at risk of flooding, and that threat rises with every big storm.