The current respite from Santa Ana winds across the Inland Empire is likely to last until early next week, when another offshore event is expected, though the intensity and duration are still unknown, according to the National Weather Service.
The agency’s wind and critical fire weather warnings for the inland region expired Wednesday night, as the northeasterly winds subsided.
However, forecasters said a sweeping frontal boundary dropping out of Canada is likely to generate Santa Ana winds again.
“The weather pattern for next week features a deep trough of low pressure covering most of the nation’s interior, with high pressure over the Pacific,” the NWS said in a statement. “That puts Southern California in northerly offshore flow seemingly forever.”
The Weather Service on Thursday was continuing to assess forecast models to gauge the timing of the next wind event, noting that one prediction called for “a strong Santa Ana as early as Monday,” but another model pointed to a “delay of a strong Santa Ana until Wednesday.”
“Fire weather conditions will be elevated and likely critical at times next week,” the agency stated.
The region’s pronounced dry conditions will be exacerbated, once again, by low relative humidity, according to the NWS.
This week and last week, the Inland Empire largely dodged major wind-driven brush fires, experiencing only scattered brushers that scorched a few acres in places — nothing on the scale of the Los Angeles County infernos.
In the Riverside metropolitan area, high temperatures through the weekend will be in the low to mid-60s, with lows in the low 40s. That temperature band will only increase slightly early next week, meteorologists said.
In the Coachella Valley, the highs through the weekend will top out in the upper 60s, followed by overnight lows in the upper 40s and that trend will remain going into early next week, while in the Temecula Valley, the mercury will largely be in line with Riverside metro.