A “Particularly Dangerous Situation” (PDS) red flag fire warning is in effect in Southern California.
A red flag warning means that critical fire weather conditions are either occurring now, or will shortly.
This life-threatening storm could bring the strongest winds in more than a decade to the region, with widespread outages and rapid fire spread both major concerns.
The reg flag warning covers Los Angeles County and much of Ventura County.
“Strong winds are coming,” the National Weather Service (NWS) said. “This is a Particularly Dangerous Situation – in other words, this is about as bad as it gets in terms of fire weather. Stay aware of your surroundings. Be ready to evacuate, especially if in a high fire risk area. Be careful with fire sources.”
Dangerous fire-weather conditions are expected across southern CA tomorrow through Thursday. Santa Ana winds with very low humidity may support dangerous fire-weather potential. See https://t.co/XSik9k2Y2s and your local NWS office for specific details. pic.twitter.com/hqn0E3SDxB
— NWS Storm Prediction Center (@NWSSPC) January 6, 2025
Areas in a red flag warning will have an increased risk for large fires with very rapid fire spread, and extreme fire behaviour.
The strongest winds with this event are expected into early Wednesday afternoon. Widespread wind gusts between 80 to 125+ km/h are forecast.
According to the NWS, the San Gabriel mountains, Santa Susana mountains, and foothills of the San Gabriel/San Fernando Valleys will likely see areas of destructive wind gusts between 120 and 160 km/h. The Los Angeles area will see sustained winds up to 65 km/h, and wind gusts upwards to 100 km/h.
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“This will likely be the most destructive windstorm seen since the 2011 windstorm that did extensive damage to Pasadena and nearby foothills of the San Gabriel Valley,” warns the NWS.
The strong winds could result in widespread downed trees and power lines, with the risk for widespread power outages.
The particularly dangerous situation is due to the strong and damaging winds, low humidity (below 20 per cent), dry fuel (vegetation), and extreme wildfire behaviour if ignition occurs.
Typically, Santa Ana winds stay within the mountain gaps and the valleys.
But with this setup and very strong, upper-level support, the winds will be strong enough to ride over top of the mountains, which means that all locations have the chance for damaging wind gusts.
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Conditions will improve on Thursday and Friday, but then offshore winds can develop once again for the weekend.