> what happens after the bomb depends greatly on the assumptions you make about damage to structures, weather patterns, the size of the bomb used, the altitude

> what happens after the bomb depends greatly on the assumptions you make about damage to structures, weather patterns, the size of the bomb used, the altitude at which it is detonated, and a host of other variables. All of these concerns are addressed in the article. There are uncertainties in predicting the extent of the firestorm, of course, but the author's point is that these uncertainties aren't any larger than the uncertainties from the blast, which we purport to understand with some precision. Rain, for example, is thought to only have a slight mitigating effect. Intuitively, that seems pretty reasonable – the water will evaporate instantly, and whatever remains will become fuel for the fire. As the article notes, the bombing of Dresden resulted in one of the worst firestorms in human history, and that fire raged despite the ground being wet and covered in snow.