LOS ANGELES (CNS) – The region’s latest heat wave is over but an “elevated” danger of fire persists in the Southland today, in part due to the onset of onshore winds, National Weather Service forecasters said.
The marine layer, 1,500 feet deep, is helping to bring down temperatures, which will be about normal today, except perhaps in the Antelope Valley, they said.
“The marine layer trumps everything,” even the sort of high-pressure system that brought the heat wave, NWS meteorologist Curt Kaplan said in a telephone interview from his monitoring station in Oxnard.
Kaplan said today’s fire risk results in part not from Santa Ana winds — a usual culprit — but the winds blowing in from the ocean, which will sweep through the Antelope Valley (14) Freeway corridor.
Winds of between 20 and 30 miles per hour are expected in the Antelope Valley this afternoon, along with 35-mph gusts.
“Fire danger will remain elevated through today, especially in the foothills and mountains and portions of the Antelope Valley,” according to an NWS statement.
But there were no immediate plans to issue a red flag warning because the fire danger is not expected to persist continuously for eight hours, Kaplan said.
The NWA forecast partly cloudy skies today and highs of 74 in Avalon and San Clemente; 77 at LAX; 78 in Newport Beach and Laguna Beach; 82 in Long Beach and downtown L.A.; 82 in Mission Viejo; 83 in Irvine; 84 in Anaheim and Burbank; 85 in Fullerton; 87 in Yorba Linda; 88 in San Gabriel; 89 in Pasadena and on Mount Wilson; 90 in Woodland Hills; 93 in Saugus; 100 in Palmdale; and 103 in Lancaster. Slightly lower temperatures are expected Wednesday.
