Spatial heterogeneity of winds during Santa Ana and non-Santa Ana wildfires in Southern California with implications for fire risk modeling.

ABSTRACT: In Southern California, the Santa Ana winds are famous for their role in spreading large wildfires during the fall/winter season. Combined with Southern California's complex topography, Santa Anas create challenges for modeling wind-fire relationships in this region. Here, we assess heterogeneity of winds during Santa Ana and non-Santa Ana days, on days with and without large-fire ignitions, across a modern high-density observational network of 30 meteorological stations. Wind speeds on Santa Ana days with a large fire ignition (mean windspeed = 5.19 m/s) are significantly higher than on Santa Ana days without large fire ignitions (3.96 m/s), while on non-Santa Ana days winds are generally weaker, during both fire (2.30 m/s) and non-fire (2.38 m/s) days. Hierarchical clustering of meteorol

SUBMITTER: Dye AW 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7322057 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature