Catastrophic wildfires continued to burn across the Los Angeles metropolitan area Friday, prompting mandatory evacuations and school closures across the region. There is little chance of relief next week. Continued strong winds amid unusually dry conditions will continue to favor conditions for both the spread of existing wildfires and the start of new wildfires.
Officials reported five major fires across Los Angeles as of Friday morning. The Palisades Fire in Pacific Palisades and Malibu has burned more than 20,000 acres, and the Eaton Fire in Altadena has grown to more than 10,000 acres. At least 10,000 buildings are believed to have been destroyed across Los Angeles, and 10 people were killed.
Fire-friendly weather requires dry vegetation, low humidity, and strong winds. The combination of these ingredients allows a fire to ignite easily and spread quickly. This dangerous combination allowed the Palisades and Eaton fires to spread beyond crews’ ability to control them earlier this week.
Firefighters then managed to put out the fire with the help of out-of-state reinforcements, refilling of fire hydrants, and slowing wind speeds. (In addition to helping the fire spread rapidly, Santa Ana’s seasonal strong winds earlier in the week also prevented firefighting aircraft from using water and flame retardants to fight the fires.) The bad news is those winds may now put out the fire. The situation is about to improve again. And in all other respects, the situation is unlikely to turn in favor of firefighters anytime soon.
What will happen next with the weather?
The Storm Prediction Center, the National Weather Service agency tasked with issuing fire weather forecasts, says fire danger will continue to increase across Los Angeles heading into this weekend.
Two more mild Santa Ana winds are possible over the next few days. One early Sunday morning and another likely on Tuesday. These wind gusts can encourage the spread of existing fires or the start of additional fires.
The Santa Ana wind phenomenon occurs when there is a pressure difference between the Great Basin (a vast area of ​​land spanning Nevada and Utah) and the coastal areas around Los Angeles.
Meteorologists often use the pressure difference between Las Vegas and Los Angeles to predict these winds. A large pressure difference creates strong winds that rush toward the coast, which can ignite existing wildfires. This is something they predict we may see again in the coming days.
Vegetation is also expected to remain abnormally dry across the region. Southern California is currently in the middle of the rainy season, but it’s not raining anywhere. Although last February was the third-wettest on record, Los Angeles International Airport has reported only 0.03 inches of rainfall since the beginning of last summer.
Even though mid-January is the height of the rainy season in Los Angeles, there is little hope for meaningful rain over the next week and a half. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center announced Thursday that the Pacific Ocean has officially entered a La Niña event, when water temperatures near the equator are colder than normal. Atmospheric changes associated with La Niña could cause the jet stream to move north across the eastern Pacific Ocean, funneling storms to Canada’s west coast instead of the western United States, and potentially leaving states like California starved of rain.
That’s exactly right, as the main storm path across the Pacific remains near the Gulf of Alaska until mid-January, with little chance for rain to travel as far south as Southern California.
Forecasters expect a weak La Niña event to persist into late winter, with a strong chance the pattern will disappear by spring. Unfortunately, this timing may coincide with the beginning of Southern California’s dry season.
However, that doesn’t mean there may not be a chance for rain in the coming months. However, with little to no rain until at least mid-January, vegetation across the region will remain very dry. The continued risk of new fires and further fire spread depends on the development of low humidity and high winds, and additional winds in Santa Ana could prove dangerous in the coming weeks .
(Tag Translation) Environment
