Damaging Santa Ana Winds In Los Angeles Area, Southern California Pose Extreme Fire Danger
A major Santa Ana windstorm that has fanned destructive wildfires while also downing trees and knocking out power in Southern California continues Wednesday, but will ease some as we head into Thursday.
(MORE: Latest On Palisades Fire And Others)
"Particularly Dangerous Situation" red flag warnings have been issued. The National Weather Service (NWS) offices in Los Angeles and San Diego have issued their highest level of this warning type for at least part of this event. As we've already seen, this means the fire danger is extreme, fanning wildfires that have grown out of control quickly given the combination of high winds and tinder-dry conditions.
The particularly dangerous situation red flag warnings include much of Los Angeles and eastern Ventura counties as well as inland Orange County, the Santa Ana mountains, the Inland Empire and the San Bernardino mountain foothills.
The strongest winds are expected through mid-afternoon Wednesday. Winds will slacken on Thursday, but remain gusty in parts of Southern California.
Friday could bring another uptick in gusty Santa Ana winds, followed by a lull Saturday. Santa Ana winds will likely return again early next week.
NWS warned the strongest winds since late 2011 would be possible for some areas. Ahead of this event, the National Weather Service (NWS) in Los Angeles said wind gusts of 50 to 80 mph were likely, with some mountain and foothill locations seeing isolated gusts of 80 to 100 mph.
Wind gusts around 100 mph had been clocked in a few spots Wednesday. That includes a gust to 98 mph to the west of the Palisades Fire and 100 mph gust north of La Canada Flintridge. The top gust so far is 103 mph at Marshall Peak in the mountains north of San Bernardino.
Strong winds have been noted in lower elevations as well. The Burbank airport reported a gust to 83 mph.
Downed trees and power outages have been reported in areas near and north of Los Angeles.
Here's the setup causing the extreme fire danger: Santa Ana winds are caused by strong high pressure over the Great Basin region of the West creating a pressure gradient that amps up winds through the mountains, foothills and sometimes valleys of Southern California. In this case, the winds are getting a major boost from a strong upper-level low pushing southward across the state.
In addition, paltry rainfall so far this rainy season has placed Southern California in drought for the first time since February 2023. Rainfall in Los Angeles is just 4% of average since Oct. 1.
The combination of those factors will continue to make for dangerous wildfire conditions Southern California until significant rainfall returns at some point in the future.
Chris Dolce has been a senior meteorologist with weather.com for over 10 years after beginning his career with The Weather Channel in the early 2000s.
