Word: weather
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...punishing gusts of the Santa Anas herald cursed weather, days and nights of devilish heat. Should a fire spark in the dry woodlands surrounding the region's cities and suburbs, the winds become a flamethrower, spreading glowing embers half a mile (800 m) or more. The Santa Anas have been midwife to the most destructive wildfires in California's history, from the Great Fire of 1889 to the 2003 disaster that blackened nearly 700,000 acres (280,000 hectares) of forest. Lifelong residents of the state know the Santa Anas and dread them. As Joan Didion has written, "The wind...
...situation was worsened by a relatively wet winter in 2004-05, which let trees and scrub grow densely, followed by extremely dry weather since, which turned the vegetation to still more fuel. In fact, this past year has seen the worst drought in Los Angeles' recorded history. Adding to the tinder were those Santa Ana winds, which strike regularly in the autumn but rarely with the power of the past week. "They usually come in small, medium and large," says Bill Patzert, a climatologist with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "These were Godzilla winds...
...only the start - not just of future fires in future seasons but of more to come this year. The Santa Ana winds have just begun and typically peak in the winter. What's more, there is not likely to be much relief from drought conditions. The National Weather Service predicts a La Niña pattern this winter, which occurs when sea-surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific Ocean are cooler than usual. La Niña usually translates to dryer and hotter weather in the American South...
...started out as an OK weekend, except the San Diego Chargers weren't playing and the weather had been in the bone chilling 60s. Then came the first flames, in one area appropriately named the Witch near Ramona. All of a sudden places we long-timers never knew even had a name became labeled. The new monikers still don't help any of us know exactly where the neighborhoods are. But we can smell them now. They are choking us. Within 24 hours, nine fires were ravaging the San Diego area. Paradise was Apocalypse...
...With weather forecasters calling for moist ocean breezes on Thursday to further dampen the fires, and hundreds of thousands of Californians returning to their homes, Schwarzenegger's crisis appears to be ending the way many of his movies wrapped up: with a lot of smoke and wreckage, but with the hero stronger than ever. This is one time, however, that Arnold would prefer not to star in a sequel...