What are the Santa Ana winds that are fueling devastating fires across Southern California?
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The National Weather Service has issued an extreme weather warning of a life-threatening and destructive windstorm. The fast-moving wildfires ripping through Southern California are being fueled by the state’s fierce Santa Ana winds. The Los Angeles Fire Department is bracing itself for the bruising winds to reach gusts of up to 60 mph through Thursday. In some parts, the Santa Anas could reach speeds of up to 100 mph, according to the National Weather Service.
Thousands of residents have been forced to evacuate LA and more than 300,000 people have been left without power after several fires ignited across the county on Tuesday evening. The Pacific Palisades fire has spread to almost 5,000 acres as of Wednesday morning, while the Eaton fire has spread over 1,000 acres through Altadena, Pasadena, Arcadia, and Sierra Madre. The Hurst fire in Sylmar at 500 acres.
“By no stretch of the imagination are we out of the woods,” Governor Gavin Newsom said on Tuesday. “I saw firsthand the impact of these swirling winds and the embers and the number of structures that are destroyed. Not a few, many structures already destroyed.”.
With the ability to turn a small spark into a raging wildfire, the Santa Anas are dry, warm and gusty northeast winds that blow from Nevada and Utah to Southern California toward the coast. They move in the opposite direction of the normal onshore flow that carries moist air from the Pacific into the region.