Satellite photo with fires indicated...

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I added the names in red. If anything is confusing just ask.

[whoneedstickets]

1. Wow, that really demonstrates the wind.

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6. You can see the same wind effect in this photo, taken in Oct. 27, 2003

The biggest, thickest smoke plume in the photo below is from the cataclysmic "Cedar Fire" of late October 2003, which ultimately burned 273,000 acres and destroyed 2,820 structures (of which 2,232 were homes) in a 50-mile swath extending from the Scripps Ranch district of the city of San Diego all the way up to (but not including) the mountain town of Julian, and resulted in 15 deaths, mostly in the city of Lakeside. It was the second-largest fire in California history (some articles claim it was the largest, but there was a fire in the late 1800s in the area that is now Orange County which was estimated to be more than 500,000 acres, so the Cedar Fire is actually the second-largest.

[ContraBass Black]

2. Thanks.

I think the witch creek fire has since spread dramatically.

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7. Yes they are reporting tonight that it has flared up and is approaching Rancho Santa Fe.

[ContraBass Black]

13. I'm particularly concerned about San Diego. Where is the southof the Witch Creek fire?

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14. The farthest south it has gotten, as far as I know, is Rancho Peñasquitos,

which is within the city limits of San Diego. When I last had the TV on about 15 minutes ago, they were saying that it flared up and was now headed in a more northerly direction, towards the unincorporated communities of Olivenhain and Rancho Santa Fe, which are north of San Diego. Rancho Santa Fe is the community which has the highest median home price of the entire United States ($2.5 million last time I heard, with many homes much higher than that.

[ContraBass Black]

15. I need to make a phone call if it gets to La Jolla

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16. La Jolla is not close to the fire.

[AZBlue]

3. That's a heart-breaking picture!

Wow.

[rusty quoin]

4. I was wondering why the wind is blowing west.

[hvn_nbr_2]

5. It's the Santa Ana winds.

When they blow in from the desert and go through the canyons, they heat up and that also make fires bad. They're what brings So. Cal temperatures in the 90s in December sometimes. I'm not sure what the meteorological conditions are that cause them, but they're fairly common; I guess it's generally high pressure inland and low pressure offshore, but don't know what causes that.

[havocmom]

8. Sometimes (often, this time of year) High Pressure over the desert to the east

creates what is called Santa Ana winds. The wind from the pressure area goes west. It picks up heat & speed from friction through canyons and the coastal mountains is the way it was explained when I was a kid there.

Some of the terrain creates a funnel sort of effect, forcing the winds through narrow passes and canyons. Seems to make it stronger and hotter. Coming at the drier time of year, it can get really bad if some fires get started.

[tinrobot]

9. Santa Ana winds

We get them a lot. High pressure air from Nevada flows through the mountain passes and out to the sea.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Ana_wind

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10. The Santa Ana winds happen when there is a very large high pressure system over the entire West,

and it rotates clockwise, pushing air from the deserts over the mountains and down into southern California. This air is extremely dry and it becomes hot as it is compressed and goes downhill. This phenomenon happens 15% of the time, the other 85% of the time in southern California, the prevailing winds are from the ocean towards the inland and are typically cool and moist. Santa Ana winds can happen at any time of the year, but occur most often in the fall and sometimes in the winter. But it is possible for them to happen at any month. They are especially dangerous in the fall, because the vegetation in California is bone-dry because there is typically no rainfall from may through October. Any fire that starts on a "Santa Ana conditions" day is immediately whipped up into a huge runaway blaze. The same fire, if it happened on a non-Santa Ana day, would be much easier to control because the air would be much drier and less windy. What makes it even worse right now, with the current Santa Ana, is that we got only half our normal rainfall this past winter, so the native vegetation is extremely dry and ready to burn. There is really not much hope of controlling these fires until the Santa Ana winds die down, and this won't happen until the high pressure system over the West moves on.

[slipslidingaway]

11. Thanks for posting this! n/t

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12. You're welcome, I'm glad I did it now.

[slipslidingaway]

17. Still relevant....thought I would kick this again. n/t

[Ilsa]

18. Hey wait! I think I can see the Virgin Mary in that smoke!

Or maybe it's the late pope. Or maybe it's my friend's daughters evacuating today while the parents are vacationing and incommunicado.

It's been a long day.

[joshcryer]

19. More pictures from NOAA's Operational Significant Event Imagery.

http://www.osei.noaa.gov/Events/Current/