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Devastating wildfires continued to burn across the Los Angeles metro area on Friday, prompting mandatory evacuations and school closures across the region. Next week promises little chance of relief; conditions remain favorable for both existing wildfire growth and new blazes to spread as gusty winds persist in unusually dry conditions.
Officials informed five great fires throughout the Los Angeles area starting Friday morning. U Palisades Fire in Pacific Palisades and Malibu consumed more than 20,000 hectares, while the Eaton Fire in Altadena it has grown to more than 10,000 hectares. It is thought that at least 10,000 structures were destroyed in Los Angeles, and 10 people were killed.
Fire-friendly climate requires dry vegetation, low humidity and stiff winds. The combination of these ingredients allows the fire to spread easily and spread quickly; it was this dangerous mix that allowed the Palisades Fire and Eaton Fire to expand beyond the ability of each crew to control them earlier in the week.
Since then, the fire crew has been able to start control fireshelped by reinforcements from outside the state, water in hydrants being they filland the wind speed decreases. (In addition to helping fires spread quickly, the high season Santa Ana winds earlier in the week sometimes preventing firefighting aircraft from working to control the flames with water and fire-retardant chemicals.) The bad news is that those winds may now pick up again – and that on all other fronts, the conditions are not likely to be. in favor of firefighters anytime soon.
What happens next with the weather
U Storm Prediction CenterThe National Weather Service agency responsible for issuing wildfire forecasts says the risk of wildfire conditions will remain high in Los Angeles this weekend.
We could see two more moderate Santa Ana wind events in the coming days – one earlier in the day on Sunday, and another possibly on Tuesday. These gusts could encourage the spread of existing fires and the ignition of additional fires.
A Santa Ana wind event occurs when there is a pressure difference between the Great Basin—the vast stretch of land in Nevada and Utah—and the coastal communities around Los Angeles.
Meteorologists often use the air pressure difference between Las Vegas and Los Angeles to predict these winds. A stronger pressure difference creates stronger winds that rush toward the coast, which fuels existing wildfires. This is what they predict we may see again in the coming days.
Vegetation will also continue to be exceptionally dry across the region. It’s the middle of the rainy season in southern California right now, but the rain is nowhere to be found. After seeing the third wettest February last year, Los Angeles International Airport reported just 0.03 inches of rain since the start of last summer.
Despite mid-January being prime time for Los Angeles’ rainy season, there is very little hope for significant rain over the next week and a half. The NOAA Climate Prediction Center announced Thursday that we have officially entered La Niña, a pattern of cooler-than-normal water temperatures in the Pacific Ocean around the equator. Changes in the atmosphere that respond to La Niña can force the jet stream to move northward over the Eastern Pacific Ocean, which shunts storms into Canada’s West Coast instead of the starved Western United States states like the California of rain.
At the moment, the predominant storm track across the Pacific Ocean will remain near the Gulf of Alaska in mid-January, giving little opportunity for rain to travel as far south as Southern California.
Forecasters expect a weak La Niña to linger into late winter, with a decent chance the pattern will fade in time for spring. Unfortunately, this timing could coincide with the start of Southern California’s dry season.
That doesn’t mean we won’t see opportunities for rain in the coming months. However, little or no rain at least in mid-January keeps vegetation exceptionally dry across the region. The continued risk for new fires and additional fire growth will depend on bouts of low humidity with gusty winds – and any additional Santa Ana wind events could be dangerous in the coming weeks.
