The wind forecast for the L.A. fires was more than expected
Los Angeles County Sheriff Rob Luna and the Santa Ana Fire Chief Robert Luna: Using the Red Flag Warning to Identify Dangerous Events in the Fourth Ward
Red flag warnings remain in effect for parts of Los Angeles and Ventura counties through Wednesday, While the wind storm is not forecast to be as strong as last week’s winds the NWS is warning of “damaging winds gusting between 55 and 70 mph.”
Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said Monday that the number of people ordered to leave has gone down to 92,000 from 89,000. High winds are expected to return over the next few days, which will cause new warnings to be issued.
The red flag warning will be in effect by late Monday night and Wednesday morning with extremely dry conditions and low humidity.
While conditions have improved, Mr. Clark said he was most concerned about the forecast for the Santa Ana winds to pick up again Tuesday night into Wednesday.
Robert Clark, a fire behavior analyst for Cal Fire, was relieved Tuesday’s winds were not as powerful as they had been. quieter weather allowed crews to extinguish the fire in pockets of smoldering landscape and vegetation.
The designation of “particularly dangerous situation” is a relatively new one. He said that the office decided to use a stronger warning on Tuesday due to the fires in the region.
Ryan Kittell compared it to an N.C.A.A. brackets filled out by a person every March. “Even if you’re the best, at some point you won’t have a forecast verify as you would like,” he said.
James Brotherton is a forecaster with the Weather Service in Los Angeles, and would rather not have a forecast be wrong if it meant less pain and suffering.
Sometimes, a storm will overperform the forecast, and sometimes it will under perform. In meteorology, both eventualities are considered “busted forecasts.” If the forecast is off by a little, people will trust future warnings a lot less, since they know that if the predicted conditions are not as bad as they had thought, they might be happy.
The number of people ordered to leave their homes due to wildfires in Southern California has declined to 92,000, from 89,000, the Los Angeles County sheriff’s office said on Monday. However, the Red Flag warning is still in effect for parts of Los Angeles and Ventura counties through Wednesday. The National Weather Service warned of “damaging winds gusting between 55 and 70 mph”.