Powerful Santa Ana wind event to bring particularly dangerous fire weather to Southern California
By Robert Shackelford, CNN
(CNN) — Southern California is bracing for another round of strong, potentially dangerous Santa Ana winds just over a month after a similar wind event helped fuel the Mountain Fire, which scorched nearly 20,000 acres in Ventura County and sent residents scrambling for safety.
The powerful wind event is set to ramp up late Monday before peaking on Tuesday.
The Storm Prediction Center issued on Monday an “extremely critical” fire weather area, particularly along the southern California coast and in western Los Angeles and eastern Ventura counties.
“Critical to extremely critical fire weather conditions are expected Tuesday morning along the southern California coast,” the weather forecasting agency said.
More than 12 million people across the region are under red flag warnings through Wednesday, including a “Particularly Dangerous Situation” red flag warning for the San Gabriel and Santa Monica mountains, the Santa Clarita Valley, Ventura County coasts and valleys and western San Fernando Valley through Tuesday afternoon.
A Particularly Dangerous Situation red flag warning was also issued for the Santa Susana Mountains until 10 a.m. Wednesday.
Wind gusts of 50 mph to 80 mph and humidities between 5% and 15% are expected across the coasts, valleys and mountains of the Santa Ana wind-prone corridor.
These Particularly Dangerous Situations are rarely issued and are reserved for the most extreme events; however, climate change is increasing the frequency of these events. Last month, similar Santa Ana winds helped the Mountain Fire explode in size and send it tearing through neighborhoods, prompting evacuations and school closures.
Downed trees and power outages are expected with this week’s winds. Combined with the very dry vegetation, any new sparks caused by downed power lines could quickly grow into large and potentially life-threatening wildfires, reminiscent of previous devastating fire events in the region.
The timing of this Santa Ana Wind Event is similar to the Thomas Fire, which burned over 280,000 acres from December 2017 to January 2018 and is the ninth-largest wildfire in California history. The Thomas Fire was caused by downed power lines, according to CalFire.
“The hardest hit areas will likely be the San Gabriels, Santa Susanas, western Santa Monicas into Malibu, Ventura county valleys (especially Simi Valley and Moorpark), western San Fernando Valley (especially Highway 118/210 corridors from Porter Ranch to San Fernando), and the hills above Camarillo into east Ventura,” the weather service office in Los Angeles warned.
After beginning to sharply increase late Monday morning and continuing to increase through the day, the winds are expected to peak Monday night through the day on Tuesday.
The conditions will slowly begin to improve Wednesday as some of the Potentially Dangerous Situation warnings should expire.
CNN’s Hanna Park contributed to this report.
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