Previous Fire News

We have watches for Santa Ana Winds. At our website we have the Santa Ana Wind Forecast Center up and running. We have opened the Fire Watch Smoke Forecast Center as well and issued a Fire Weather Watch. I really do hope that we can work together sometime to provide safe and reliable forecasts for Southern California, including our local mountains Thanks, and please write back:)

Kevin Martin
Ontario Weather Service
www.ontarioweatherservice.com

What about yesterday's wind? I live in Pasadena full time and boy, it was a doozy. I even heard it might have been an upstart tornado! No Santa Ana though.

Yesterday might have been a torando. We at OWS had a Tornado Watch up for a couple areas, including that area. www.ontarioweatherservice.com/tracy.html
That link has the full report.

As for smoke if a fire starts, here you guys go.
UPDATED! SMOKE FORECAST IF FIRES ARE ACTIVE: 3PM :

11AM Thursday : If the fire starts anywhere in the red shadings the smoke will go Southwest at first with the low level winds. As it rises, it will head more South along the mid level winds. With a FAST mid level jet , it would travel South and far. Most of our smoke from the fires travel far, but this would travel for a longer distance.

5PM Thursday : By evening all winds in the profile will say smoke will travel to the South mainly, but not as fast as what it would earlier due to losing some mid level support.

11PM Thursday : A North-Northwestern low level flow will take over, bringing the smoke still going South, but as it gets higher up, it will travel to the South-Southeast, and not as fast due to even more weakening of the mid level flow.

From OWS website:

March 29, 2007 - 12PM Update - Winds here at the OWS home are gusting below 25 mph right now. Dewpoint is back on the rise on our weather station and that means the Santa Ana Winds are about to end. We should be ending the updates on time, by about 2PM when our Wind Advisory expires. Fremont Canyon is below 40 mph now, and Los Angeles County Mountains at 40 mph, but these should even die soon with the rest of the forecast area. Onshore flow is still expected to kick up in the next 2-3 hours as warming of the valleys creates a temperature difference from the ocean to surface, bringing in the cooler air. Will update 2 more times. 1PM and 2PM. Then we will close this section.