Los Angeles Will Remain at High Risk of Fire Into Next Week

Devastating wildfires continued to burn across the Los Angeles metro area on Friday, prompting mandatory evacuations and school closures. The next week promises little prospect of relief; Conditions will be favorable for both the growth of existing wildfires and the sparking of new ones, as gusty winds continue amid unusually dry conditions.

Officials said Five major fires through Friday morning across the Los Angeles area. D Palisades Fire consumed more than 20,000 acres in the Pacific Palisades and Malibu, while Eton Fire Altadena has over 10,000 acres. At least 10,000 structures are believed to have been destroyed across Los Angeles and 10 people were killed.

Favorable fire conditions require dry vegetation, low humidity and strong winds. The combination of these elements allows the fire to ignite easily and spread quickly; It’s this dangerous mix that allowed the Palisades Fire and Eaton Fire earlier in the week to spread beyond the ability of any crew to control them.

Since then, the fire service personnel have been able to start fire controlAided by out-of-state reinforcements, there is water in the hydrants refillAnd the wind speed is decreasing. (In addition to helping fires spread faster, High seasonal Santa Ana winds at the start of the week (At times firefighters prevented aircraft from working to contain the fire with water and fire-fighting chemicals.) The bad news is that those winds may now pick up again—and on all other fronts, the situation isn’t likely to change for firefighters anytime soon.

What happens next with the weather

D Storm Prediction CenterThe National Weather Service, the agency tasked with issuing fire weather outlooks, says the risk of fire conditions will increase across Los Angeles this weekend.

We’ll see two more moderate Santa Ana wind events in the coming days—one early Sunday, and another likely Tuesday. These gusts can spread existing fires and encourage additional fires.

A Santa Ana wind occurs when there is a pressure difference between the Great Basin—the vast landmass of 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 strong pressure difference creates strong winds that rush toward the coast, which feed existing wildfires. This is what they are predicting that we will see again in the coming days.

Vegetation will also continue to be exceptionally dry across the region. It’s the middle of Southern California’s rainy season—yet the rain is nowhere to be found. After seeing the third-wettest February on record last year, Los Angeles International Airport has received just 0.03 inches of rain since the start of last summer.

Despite mid-January being prime time for Los Angeles’ rainy season, there’s little hope for meaningful rain in the next week and a half. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center announced Thursday that we’ve officially entered La Niña, a pattern of cooler-than-normal water temperatures in the Pacific Ocean around the equator. Atmospheric changes in response to La Niña can force the jet stream to move northward over the eastern Pacific, funneling storms to the west coast of Canada rather than the western United States, rain-starved states like California.

Directly, the main storm track across the Pacific will remain near the Gulf of Alaska until mid-January, giving it some chance for rain as far south as Southern California.

Forecasters expect a weak La Niña to last until late winter, with the pattern fading by spring. Unfortunately, this time may coincide with the onset of the dry season in Southern California.

That doesn’t mean we won’t see a chance of rain next month. However, vegetation will remain exceptionally dry across the region unless there is light rain until at least mid-January. The ongoing risk of new fires and additional fire growth will depend on low humidity along with gusty winds—and any additional Santa Ana wind events could prove dangerous in the coming weeks.