Strong winds and dry conditions are fueling concerns of wildfires in Southern California.
An ongoing pattern of Santa Ana winds is expected to last into early next week in much of Southern California, with the potential for critical fire weather conditions in Los Angeles County to extend into Friday. Extreme fire weather conditions and damaging northern winds continued into Wednesday afternoon, January 8, with recorded gusts of 85 mph during the morning in the Malibu and Topanga Canyon area.
While high 30 to 40 mph northern winds in coastal and downtown Los Angeles were expected during the day, they were likely to drop off Wednesday evening, remaining in the 15 to 30 mph range by Thursday morning. “You’ll still see wind, but considerably less than what we’ve been seeing,” NWS meteorologist Mike Wofford said of the early Thursday forecast. Temperatures will remain in the low to mid 70s until the weekend, with highs in the mid to upper 60s on Saturday and Sunday through most of the county. The Interstate 5 corridor, San Fernando and San Gabriel Valley will see higher winds at 30 to 50 mph until Wednesday evening, with widespread gusts between 60 to 80 and isolated gusts up to 100 mph. The Eaton Fire in Altadena, which led to evacuations for all of La Canada Flintridge, continued to grow due to the combined low humidity and high winds, the Los Angeles County Fire Department said. As the Santa Ana wind pattern persists, expect another bump up in wind, from the 30 to 50 mph range Thursday night going into Friday, followed by another drop down Saturday and even weaker winds Sunday. There could be a chance of another Santa Ana wind event next week, similar to conditions expected for Friday, Wofford said. A red flag warning, which is set to expire Thursday evening, could be extended into Friday. Dry conditions will continue throughout the county with humidity levels under 25 percent and as low as 10 percent in some areas
SANTA ANA WINDS FIRE WEATHER CALIFORNIA WILDFIRES RED FLAG WARNING
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