"‘Extreme Red Flag’ Winds Hitting L.A. Region Are Especially Dangerous"

"Even after several years of devastating wind-driven fires in Southern California, forecasters fear that the next two days could bring new levels of danger.

“Extreme” fire weather began in the Los Angeles area at 11 p.m. Tuesday and was expected to persist for 30 hours, bringing isolated gusts of up to 80 mph. It’s an unusually long Santa Ana wind condition, and fire weather of this kind hasn’t been seen in Southern California since October 2007, when similar conditions helped unleash the sixth most destructive fire in California history.

The National Weather Service office in Oxnard took the unusual step of labeling the fire weather conditions an “extreme red flag” warning, a term that meteorologists there say they can’t remember ever using. But they did so to underscore the severity of this Santa Ana wind event."

Joseph Serna and Rong-Gong Lin II report for the Los Angeles Times Oct. 30, 2019.

SEE ALSO:

"Scientists Studying Extreme Winds And Wildfires" (NPR)

Source: LA Times, 10/30/2019