Fire threat remains critical in Southern California

AccuWeather's Ken Clark reports of the wildfire threat continues to be critical as Santa Ana winds remain active as of Jan. 14.

Transcript

00:00And joining me again is Acura, the California expert, Ken Clark. Ken, thanks again for being

00:04with us this morning. Let's talk about still the current situation ongoing here, at least

00:10through about the next 24 hours. We still have very critical fire weather going on right on

00:15into tomorrow. We got about another 24 to 36 hours of that kind of conditions with very low humidity

00:22and the threat for gusty strong winds across at least parts of the Southland, Southern California.

00:28Now, these winds are going to be mainly confined to the typical Santa Ana places,

00:33which will run from near Malibu on up through Ventura County, up in the Santa Clarita Valley,

00:38and across the Inland Empire, and also all the mountains of Southern California,

00:43right on into tomorrow. This will ebb and flow a little bit. We don't see as much wind right now

00:48along coastal areas as we had yesterday, but that will pick up as we go through the morning hours

00:53of today into this afternoon, die down a little bit this evening, come back up again later tonight

00:57and tomorrow morning. And Ken, it's our job here to, of course, give the currents and what could

01:02be still a very dangerous fire risk across the region today. But it's also great to give the

01:07good news when we see it. And that was the first thing you wanted to talk about when you popped on

01:12just a few minutes ago. And so tell us when we look ahead here through the rest of the week,

01:16what you're seeing in the pattern. I think everybody across Southern California needs

01:20a little bit of good news to go along with all that's been going on for over a week now.

01:24The good news is that this pattern is changing, and will start to change noticeably Thursday

01:30afternoon with the return of some humidity in the air, especially on coastal areas in the afternoon.

01:36And by Friday in the weekend, everyone's going to be cooler, everyone's going to have light winds,

01:40everyone's going to have higher humidity, and we ought to be able to get any fires a lot more

01:46under control than they are right now. And hopefully we won't have any more to deal with

01:50between now and let's say tomorrow afternoon evening. So we have good news coming up,

01:54higher humidities, lower temperatures, and much less wind by Friday in the weekend.

01:59That is some excellent news. Now the only extra thing that we would want to add into that is some

02:03precipitation. I know our long-range team here at AccuWeather has been looking at minimal rain

02:08chances through the end of the month. So in the short term, not all that great with rainfall.

02:12But we could see a change in the pattern that could bring us some more, a better chance of

02:16rain at least in the month of February. Yeah, the only good news is I have a bad news in the

02:21long range is that we don't expect any rain anytime soon of any importance whatsoever,

02:27at least through the end of the month, probably to start off February as well. But at least we're

02:31having the everything else improve. And as for any additional Santa Ana wind events,

02:37they're possible, but not through the weekend after we get through this one.

02:41AccuWeather California expert Ken Clark, not only do we appreciate all your information,

02:45but also the good news here and the more favorable conditions for fighting these fires

02:50across Southern California. We appreciate it and stay safe today. You're very welcome.