El Niño drowning Texas wildfire threat

While her pastures were parched and withered last summer after nearly two years without appreciable rain, the area northwest of San Antonio where Davis raises beef cattle and Texas Longhorns experienced its wettest September through January on record, a National Weather Service meteorologist said Friday.

"I don't see any threat of fires and a year ago that was a distinct possibility," Davis said. "It's not something I think about day-to-day but last year I did."

The threat of wildfires across Texas this winter is low and will remain so as long as the El Nino weather pattern persists.

Texas Forest Service spokesman Mark Stanford said rain and snow across the state the past several months would keep vegetation and grasses wet through winter.

"I love El Nino in the winter," Stanford said. "You can expect regular precipitation that will keep fire danger low."

El Nino is characterized by unusually warm temperatures in the equatorial waters of the Pacific Ocean.

The weather pattern, which began last fall, was expected to remain through May, according to Victor Murphy with the NWS in Fort Worth. It followed a nearly two-year drought that cost an estimated $3.6 billion in crop and livestock losses in the nation's No. 2 agriculture state.

Last February, the San Antonio area was in the midst of its driest two years on record. From September 2007 to August 2009 the city's airport got just 24.83 inches. An unusually hot summer compounded the problems.

San Antonio had 59 days over 100 degrees, shattering the record of 36.