Weekend rain to help firefighting efforts in Southern California fires

AccuWeather

AccuWeather's Jon Porter was live on the AccuWeather Network on Jan. 24 to discuss the wildfire situation in Southern California.

Transcript

00:00live look at Los Angeles here this morning and here's your first kind of a glimpse at Los Angeles

00:06and the fact that you don't have any clouds not a cloud in the sky tells you that we don't have

00:11an onshore flow we have an offshore flow temperatures already in the 50s and it is

00:16just bone dry in California with that I want to bring in our chief meteorologist Jonathan Porter

00:23you know John since the fire danger has been going on and the fires have been burning especially the

00:29pacific palisades fire which caused so many damage you know we we look into this to give

00:34some context to our audience for people to understand just how costly now we know it's

00:41been deadly but how costly these fires have been and this is a pretty big number John

00:47you know not all that dissimilar to the kind of numbers we see with hurricanes no a major

00:54hurricane hit when you look at the types of impacts that were happening from from Hurricane

00:58Helene and also it's on the same order a bit higher than Hurricane Milton's impacts in the

01:04United States but still to your point in that ballpark at 250 to 275 billion dollar total

01:11damage and economic loss from those fast-moving wind-driven infernos and the the impact here is

01:17going to take years and even a decade in some cases with a lot for people to rebuild and get

01:23back to where some of these communities were before the fire affected them and also the other

01:29point is there's going to be a long tail of health impacts here due to because of the just dangerous

01:36air pollution really that was all the smoke that was lofted in the air by these fires as well so

01:41lots of issues for a long time in these areas. I call it a perfect storm in Southern California

01:47John because the last two the last two winter months we had storm after storm after storm

01:53that produced all of the rain in California then as is normally the case what we start seeing is

02:00you start getting a lack of rain during the spring months but usually the rains come back

02:07as we get into the December but December and January and you could just see how quickly

02:13things can change in California we started to dry things out but I think you and I both agree on this

02:18the key is the wind when the wind blows the fires start burning in California unfortunately we've

02:25seen that connection for decades here but certainly the dry conditions really were one of the

02:31ingredients for those fires. It made it like a tinderbox and when you did get that wind all of

02:38that dried out vegetation was at great risk of of spreading those fires very quickly and you can see

02:44the tale of two Californias here look at what's been happening here across Southern California

02:49intense dryness and building short-term drought but across Northern California where there has

02:55been some rain so far this wet season a totally different story here on the latest drought

02:59monitor that's not even highlighted but we're dealing with now a severe to extreme a drought

03:04situation across Los Angeles to San Diego remember in LA you have to go all the way back to April

03:10mid-April to get a quarter inch of rainfall so it just showcases how significant this drought

03:17this short-term dryness has been that has led to the elevated fire risk anytime the winds are gusty

03:23yeah you know John a couple of things though here comes our next storm and you and I were talking

03:27about this it's a difference of about 250 miles as that upper low comes south it's amazing and

03:34what kind of a difference that makes right if it is further east across Nevada that's when you get

03:38a lot of wind offshore wind to be generated but when the storm is off the coast the upper level

03:44drops off the coast and develops that way that allows all of that moist onshore flow

03:51increased relative humidities increased moisture and rain and mountain snow yeah and then we take

03:56a look really quickly here John I want to show you the rainfall amounts listen this isn't a big

04:01storm for this time of the year but it's the most impactful storm rain wise we've seen all winter in

04:08southern California and that's good news because it's coming at a right time we're looking for

04:13anywhere from perhaps around a half an inch in the LA basin an inch or perhaps two in some of

04:19the higher elevations there'll be some mountain snow here in as well so that is what we need

04:24right now to help the firefighters in some of these areas and of course there will be

04:29unfortunately a risk of some mud slides and some of the burn scar areas but I think overall the

04:36positives outweigh the negatives with this system gonna have to watch the flash flood

04:40warnings in those burn scar areas all right chief meteorologist Jonathan Porter John thanks for

04:45joining us here on AccuWeather Early.

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