Firefighters containing California wildfires amidst calming conditions

AccuWeather

AccuWeather California Expert Ken Clark says a break in the Santa Ana winds will lead to calmer conditions for the state, making it favorable for firefighters as they continue to contain the fires.

Transcript

00:00clouds. A welcome sight to see across Southern California today.

00:04They really are. The humidity is way up, as we have expected over the last

00:07couple days. We've been talking about it, and that's gonna be the case right

00:11on into the weekend. These clouds around show that there's humidity now

00:15in the air. This is really been helping the firefighters. We've seen a

00:19containment increase 10 to 20% in the past 24 hours alone. So this is a

00:24great sign and a great thing for the next couple of days. That is excellent

00:29news just for the short term and the most current problems here. But Ken,

00:32using your expertise here to talk about, uh, this time of year in California

00:37and really what we should be seeing is is big, impactful rainstorms.

00:42Yeah, December, January, February, March are your rainy months, and we've

00:46had virtually no rain, uh, since last spring. So, uh, 16 hundreds of an inch

00:53in Los Angeles since last mid April. That's nothing. And, uh, we're like it

00:59says. We're supposed to have 3.29 inches of rain in January. We've had

01:02nothing, and we don't see any coming in the near future, either. So this is a

01:07big problem, and it will continue to be a big problem for a while longer.

01:11And obviously why we're seeing drought. It's not uncommon to see drought in

01:14Southern California. But during the rainy season here, I know you were

01:17saying that you've never really seen anything like this here this time of

01:21year. Not this long of period of dry weather. I've seen really dry periods

01:26and for parts of the winter, but never this extended.

01:31And then that means any time the wind blows, we are going to have problems.

01:35And I know we were taking a closer look here when we expect that Santa Ana

01:38wind that to return, and you're starting to get a little bit more

01:41confidence here for next week.

01:44It looks like we're gonna have certainly offshore winds for much of

01:49next week, starting as early as Monday. The time period I'm really

01:52concerned about right now is Monday night into Tuesday. More of our

01:56computer models are starting to come into agreement that we could have at

02:00least a moderate, maybe even stronger wind event during that time period. It's

02:05not to the point yet where we can sit down and give you specific numbers. But

02:09I think we are looking at a potential right now for the strongest event next

02:13week to begin the Monday night Tuesday time period.

02:16That's helpful. How about any kind of rain in the future? What are you

02:21looking at, Ken?

02:23Nothing through next week. At this point, maybe something on the horizon

02:27as we get into February. Let's hope so. The other thing we have to consider

02:31here, let's not get too much rain too quickly. All this barren land out

02:36there, all this debris that's in these neighborhoods from the fires. What we

02:41don't need right now is a huge downpour either. So something in between

02:46would be nice. Yeah, that's difficult, right? To kind of phrase it like that.

02:49That's like, well, yeah, you need the rain, but not actually currently with

02:52what is going on. So a very, very difficult situation across Southern

02:56California. Ken, we appreciate your expertise all week long and we hope you

02:59continue to stay safe. Thank you.

Category

Transcript

Recommended