There may be no weather pattern more iconically associated with Los Angeles than the Santa Ana winds.
One of the earliest written descriptions of the Santa Anas comes from the diary of Commodore Robert Stockton on the night of Jan. 6, 1847; the next day his forces captured Los Angeles on behalf of the United States.
And as the city has grown to assume a prominent place in American pop culture, it has given global renown to this local phenomenon, name-dropped by Raymond Chandler , Nancy Meyers and the Beach Boys .
The Santa Ana winds are notorious for being hot, dry, and dusty — traits that have earned them the nickname “devil winds” — but the quality that really defines them is their direction.
Unlike the prevailing winds in Southern California, which flow generally from west to east, carrying temperate air from the Pacific, the Santa Anas flow from northeast to southwest out of the Mojave Desert. What causes this reversal, and why does it produce such a diabolical result?
To form the Santa Ana winds, the typical first ingredient is a chilled autumn day in the high desert of southern Nevada.