There's a link between Southern California's dry winter and persistent Santa Ana winds.
This high-pressure pattern that promotes clear skies and warm, dry winter weather also provides the perfect setup for Santa Ana winds. There have been at least 20 Santa Anas since September, according to Alex Tardy, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in San Diego.
This warm air mass is a much stronger block than you would normally expect in the Pacific in January and February, Tardy explained. In fact, he described the weather pattern during Super Bowl week as very similar to the one that brought record heat to the West Coast last summer. The difference, though, is in the magnitude. Because of the season, it couldn’t be as strong as it is during the summer.
As upper troughs pass, they’re followed by high pressure building at the surface. The trough, which moves west to east as part of the jet stream, typically generates sundowner winds in southern Santa Barbara County, then north winds through the Interstate 5 corridor, culminating in the surface high setting up over the interior, often Nevada, and generating the Southland’s infamous northeasterly offshore Santa Ana winds.
Cold, dry air pools in the Great Basin. This high-pressure air flows downhill toward lower pressure at sea level, and as it descends, it warms through compression heating. Early in the season, the high-pressure air in the Great Basin starts out warmer, so the addition of compressional heating can make for winds that feel hot like a hair dryer. Later in the season — late fall and winter — the jet stream comes farther down out of Canada and feeds much colder Arctic air into the interior West. That colder, denser air can generate stronger winds, even though they may not be as oven-hot as in the early fall.
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