A strange long Santa Ana wind event is expected to relieve on Thursday evening and the fire risk will be slow down further. However, there is no favourable thing on horizon, forecasters predict little chance of rain in the next couple of weeks. Critical fire weather warnings continue for the windiest spots of Venture and Los Angeles counties and there is a continuity of red-flag conditions for next 24 hours.
The red-flag warnings sound the alarm for the maximum winds, parched vegetation and dry air persists for inland mountains as well as valleys located in Ventura and Los Angeles counties as well as Santa Clarita Valley as very dry air and ongoing winds from the northeast direction. On the other hand, other areas were expected to see these warnings expire because gusts ease to 25 mph to 35mph.
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In a Ventura County coastal valley, the top wind gusts 67mph Thursday recorded as per the National Weather Service report. This wind is not much weaker than the 78mph wind gusts at Boney Peak in the Santa Monica Mountains on Wednesday. The air is still bone dry with relative humidity levels in the site of the fire Simi Valley threatened the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library at eight percentages Thursday.
When fire weather risks will reduce.
Red-flag warnings were expected to end for Southern California because less windy location by Thursday at 6 p.m. However, supercharged winds from the powerful mass of high-pressure and cold air over Rocky Mountains are expected to weaken the winds in the south. Lisa Phillips, the National Weather Service’s Oxnard office said that the elevated fire danger persists through the weekend even after the red-flag warnings expire. Fortunately, we do not see any more Santa Ana winds within the upcoming week.
Why California has been hit with powerful winds.
The main reasons behind the Santa Ana wind event was strong mass of cold and high-pressure air parked over the Great Basin and Rocky Mountains over Nevada and Utah on Thursday. In northern Utah, a record low of negative 14-degree was recorded. This event was breaking a 28-year old record of low of minus 1 degree in 1991.
The cold air mass dropped in from the Arctic to the Rockies as there is a big mass of high pressure over Alaska which has been seeing good record warmth on a regular basis. There is no sea ice on the Arctic Ocean coast in this month for the first time. The main reason behind the extreme contrast in the temperature is the warm mass of air over Alaska had such effect of placing the cold air over some Rockies. This process sends supercharged dry winds close to the coast of California.
No signs of rain in early November.
There is no clear sign of rain anywhere in the weather forecast for California. There is a possibility of less rain in California at the traditional start of the rainy season. This entire wet season will be below the average level. We will have to take the seasons as they come.
