Southern California Weather Force has issued a Santa Ana Wind Watch, effective now for January 7th into the 8th, 2025, in response to the forecast issued over a week ago for the first week of January on wind events.
Discussion: An interesting weather pattern will be developing as an ice storm set to hit the Eastern Central United States happens this weekend. This will set the ridge up to move to the west some and allow stronger low-pressure systems to drop into the Southwestern United States. This is what is called a hybrid inside slider pattern mixed with a cutoff low. Cutoff lows are tough to forecast, but the majority of the numbers suggests upper support will be there during the allotted time period for a Santa Ana Wind Event to occur.
Given the cutoff nature, I will wait a bit to upgrade Santa Ana Wind Watch to anything higher, such as a possible Enhanced Santa Ana Wind Watch or Warning. Still, the Southern California Weather Force numbers suggest it will be an event.
LONG RANGE: This pattern does mean that we are looking at more systems coming down around the ridge through the third week of January for colder systems moving in, finally. Stay tuned for updates on this current event and the long range.