KHTS Radio Santa Clarita Radio – Santa Clarita News
The first Santa Ana wind event is expected to arrive Thursday, bringing dry conditions, prompting a Red Flag Warning to go into effect for the Santa Clarita Valley.
Northeast winds, or Santa Ana winds are expected to arrive Thursday, which can cause brush fires to spread rapidly.
“We’re looking at a return of the Santa Anas, it will be the first Santa Ana event for this year,” said Kristan Lund, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service (NWS).
The upcoming wind event is expected Thursday morning and is set to be a moderate to strong Santa Ana event, according to Lund.
“We’re looking at hot and dry conditions returning, it will be very windy, especially when it peaks Friday,” Lund said.
Winds out of the northeast are expected to be 25 to 40 mph, with stronger gusts in the mountains.
Types Of Santa Ana Events
When Santa Ana winds are expected, they can fall under three different levels, weak, moderate and strong.
A weak Santa Ana event is when winds are 15 to 25 mph out of the northeast with gust to 40 mph.
A moderate Santa Ana event is 20 to 30 mph winds out of the northeast with gust to 50 mph.
A strong Santa Ana event is when winds are 20 to 40 mph out of the northeast with gust to 60 mph.
Temperatures are also expected to be in the mid 80s to lower 90s, according to NWS officials.
Lund says humidity levels are also expected to drop down to around 10 to 20 percent, with some areas expected to reach single digits.
Due to the dry and warm conditions accompanied by strong Santa Ana winds, a Red Flag Warning is set to go into effect Thursday morning lasting through Friday evening, according to officials.
When Santa Anas Are Predicted
When Santa Ana winds are expected, the NWS can issue Red Flag warnings, at which point fires are more likely to start.
In order for a Red Flag warning to be issued, one of three different criteria have to be met which include:
The relative humidity is 15 percent or less with sustained winds 25 mph or greater or frequent gusts 35 mph or greater in a duration of six hours or more.
The second criteria is when relative humidity is 10 percent or less with either sustained winds at 15 mph or greater or frequent gust of 25 mph or greater in a duration of six hours or more.
Lastly, if there is wide spread and/or significant dry lightning, according to NWS officials.
During strong wind events, Public Safety Power Shutoffs are likely in high fire areas.
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Everybody in these agencies act like Santa Ana wind is a new thing – I grew up with this weather condition. I’m more concerned about the cindition of the High Voltage lines then with the local lines – those have rarely caused a fire unless somethoing gets blown into the lines, a tree brings down lines or a pole breaks. During a 2 year period we put up with numerous maintenance outages as So Cal Edison “upgraded” the local power lines – to decrease the number of PSPS outages – or so they said; yet we are being subject to more PSPS outages then before the so-called upgrade. This is about Edison trying to protect thier bottom line.