Weather pattern change means good news for the fight against California fires

AccuWeather

A break in Santa Ana winds, combined with increased humidity, is a welcome change for the firefighters working to contain wildfires in Southern California.

Transcript

00:00Wildfires continue to burn in Southern California, but there is some good news.

00:06A break in the wind is allowing firefighters to gain ground.

00:10To help us break down the details, we are joined now by AccuWeather California expert Ken Clark.

00:16Ken, we were talking about this a little bit earlier. Thank you once again for joining us.

00:21This has been quite the ride here over the last week or so when it comes to the weather across California.

00:28It's been about nine or ten straight days of offshore winds, very dry air and very bad fire weather conditions.

00:36And of course that led to two extraordinary bad fires that we had here in Southern California.

00:42The good news is those winds are over with for the next few days.

00:46We're having a big change of the weather. We're going to see a huge cool down.

00:50We're going to see a big increase in the amount of moisture in the air.

00:53And we're going to see that starting as early as right now.

00:56In fact, we're seeing dew points or the relative humidities on the rise already along coastal areas.

01:02And that will increase even more over the next 24 to 48 hours.

01:06We'll even see some coastal low clouds develop along the beaches first, maybe late tonight.

01:12And then more widespread as we get into tomorrow night and Friday night, Saturday night, I'm sorry.

01:17So we are seeing some really good conditions for the firefighters coming up.

01:22The containment on the fires are pretty good right now, going to get even better.

01:26So this couldn't be any better news and couldn't come any sooner either.

01:30No, and this is welcome news.

01:32We like to see those colors change over from the browns to more of those greens.

01:37We're getting some moisture.

01:39That brings me to my next point though, Ken.

01:42Long term, we still have Santana winds on the way

01:46and we aren't necessarily tracking a lot of rain falling to the surface.

01:51One thing that pretty certain looks like we're not going to see any important rainfall

01:54for the next 10 days at least.

01:56So that's almost a certainty.

01:57What is uncertain right now is whether we'll have another Santa Ana wind event next week.

02:03I think the possibility is probably fairly good that there will be.

02:06But what is really up for grabs is the strength and the timing of that.

02:11We have models going anywhere from very little offshore winds to very strong offshore winds.

02:17There's no way right now that we can, with any kind of confidence,

02:22try to decide which of these models are right.

02:24We're just going to have to keep on watching this.

02:26Keep looking at the weather as you go through the weekend,

02:29everywhere that is susceptible to, again, Santa Ana winds.

02:33Because as we get to the weekend and beyond that,

02:36we ought to be able to get some more confidence in what is going to happen.

02:41And you'll see it here and hear it here first on the AccuWeather Network.

02:46Yes, thank you, of course, Ken.

02:49And this, of course, is a tricky forecast.

02:52It takes just a lot looking at those little nuances.

02:55Thank you again for joining us, AccuWeather California expert Ken Clark.

02:59Well, we'll certainly be talking to you soon, I'm sure.

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