Santa Ana Winds Continue To Pose Fire Danger For San Diego County

Speaker 1: 00:00 It's a fire day in Southern California. Santa Ana winds have whipped a wildfire in the San Fernando Valley that's destroyed 25 homes and caused the evacuation of more than a hundred thousand people were experiencing similar weather conditions here in San Diego with humidities in the single digits in the East County. And as we keep our fingers crossed against wildfire today, let's get an update on weather conditions from Alex tardy meteorologist with the national weather service in San Diego. And Alex, welcome back. Thanks for having me on. We got the low humidity, but do we have the windy conditions that usually company a Santa Ana? So the winds have picked up overnight and we're seeing gusts of 35 to 40 miles per hour over the San Diego mountains. So we do have the wind. Um, actually the winds blowing all the way over to Rancho Santa Fe this morning and they're getting gusts 30 to 35. So it's a Santa Ana wind event that we categorized as moderate and it's mostly materializing. Speaker 1: 00:59 It's not a strong event, but like you said in the beginning here, the humidity. Um, and that's what we were trying to emphasize with this event was that very dry conditions all through Southern California. Those are ingredients with the F with the wind, four fires to spread rapidly. Is this the first real Santa Ana of the season? This is the first thing that efficient one. We had a couple in a late September and one in early October, but they were barely noticeable. Uh, it didn't make it all over to the coast and it wasn't nearly as dry. So I would say this is the first significant Santa Anna. Yes. Let me talk to you about a bigger picture. Okay. We're seeing much of the middle part of the country in an unprecedented early cold snap. How does our hot dry weather fit into that overall pattern? Yeah. Um, they are directly related. Speaker 1: 01:45 So the weather pattern that we've seen going on really throughout the summer, um, and all the way now into the fall early fall takes the storms across the Northern Rockies into the Plains and this time of year it can be really cold storms. Those are the perfect ingredients for what we set up to see as a Santa Ana when it's hard without being a meteorologist, you know, to kind of put those two together. But they're directly related. It puts us on the dry, warm and sometimes windy side of these storms. So every storms got that dry, warm, windy side. This type of storm track is ideal for us getting these. Unfortunately these types of Santa Ana winds now SDG and E has moved forward with their plan to shut off power to several hundred residents in San Diego's East County. What weather conditions led to that decision? So a several days really starting back to last weekend we could see the Santa Anna wind in the computer models in the forecast and it really starts then sending the message out that there's a potential, there's a potential and you get closer and closer and then when you see it materialize, when you see the winds start to pick up in LA County like we did, um, Wednesday. Speaker 1: 03:00 And then when you see it start spreading into Riverside County like yesterday and eventually to San Diego County yesterday afternoon, those are the ingredients where they actually, it goes from potential to, okay, we're now, we're going to de-energize. So they're monitoring the weather's close as we do, um, in terms of satellite weather stations. But really seeing it develop, seeing those winds pick up and the humidity drop as well is what initiates. Okay, now we're going to de-energize. How do you see conditions progressing through the rest of today? The good news is that today is going to be the worst of it. Um, this afternoon just going to be skin cracking, bone dry. Um, the winds are going to continue to blow into this afternoon. Then when we get after sunset this evening, Friday evening, it's going to remain dry, but winds are going to fall apart quickly. Uh, we will see some wind continuing in some of our I corridor area. Speaker 1: 03:54 Alpine was gonna see a little bit of wind continued tonight into Saturday mornings. So it's not over with. But today's the worst part of this Santa Ana wind event. The dryness lingers all the way through Saturday, so we're not out of the woods in terms of the dryness is really the low humidity is going to continue on Saturday and then we shift Sunday Monday into um, the onshore flow and moistening more humidity looking up North where they're actually dealing with an active fire system at the wildfire. When it takes off, it creates its own sort of weather. What challenges does that pose for weather forecast as trying to deliver accurate forecasts in these fire active fire areas? Yeah, it's, it's remarkable. We saw some fires in Kelly Mesa and Marino Valley and Riverside County yesterday and they were explosive. You could see 'em on camera, on satellite and they just took off. Speaker 1: 04:48 And that's the conditions we worried about with, with these type of Santa Ana's, the heat that's generated within these fires. It's just like a thunderstorm. It takes on its own environment and that heat warm air rises. So that heat rising is really what triggers these erratic and unusual winds in and around the fire. They're already dealing with the prevailing Santa Ana winds, which are bad enough. Now looking forward into next week, are we returning to normal or are are there more sent that Anna winds on the way? We are returning to normal next week, but unfortunately this weather pattern looks like it's going to continue, um, throughout October and it does look like we have the potential for more Santa Ana winds starting, um, the latter part of October. So at least we get several days or a week where we more or less have a break and get more to average normal conditions. And that means cloud cover and Cooley evenings. What we saw last week. Yeah, the fog and clouds will start to return this weekend on the beaches and then they'll slowly spread in. Lynn, um, we'll still see a lot of sunny days, but at least the humidity will be up and the wind will be blowing from the ocean instead of from the desert. Okay. Yeah. I've been speaking with national weather service meteorologist Alex tardy. Alex, as always. Thank you so much. Thank you again.