Valley Under Red Flag, High-Wind Alert

Red Flag Warnings have been posted for parts of Southern California, as Santa Ana winds will extend Southern California's run of summer-like weather with a price -- high fire danger.

The National Weather Service (NWS) issued Red Flag Warnings for overnight in the San Fernando. San Gabriel and Santa Clarita valleys, the San Gabriel Mountains, and the hills and mountains from Dodger Stadium west to Malibu.

The winds were expected to hit Orange County's eastern hills at about 8 a.m. Sunday and last all day there, the NWS said.

Los Angeles city firefighters were looking at hillsides covered with vegetation that has dried out in recent windstorms, and were considering whether to invoke emergency fire-weather bans for on-street parking in the Hollywood Hills, a spokesman said.

With clockwise winds wrapping around a high-pressure building over the Great Basin, local winds will pick up this evening, out of the north and east.

Desert winds were expected to start acting up at about 10 p.m. Saturday night in Acton and the San Gabriel Mountains, and then spread into Los Angeles and vicinity by 2 a.m. Sunday, and Orange County by 8 a.m., the NWS said. Peak gusts of 60 miles per hour in the hills and 50 mph in the flat valleys were anticipated.

The nasty winds were expected to dissipate by Sunday evening, the NWS said.

Saturday's highs were to be noticeably cooler, mostly in the upper 60s. But the offshore winds will heat up the Los Angeles Basin again on Sunday, pushing highs back into the 70s.

With just smattering of rain so far -- the seasonal total is about 3.7 inches, thanks to some unusually strong downpours this fall -- the warm weather and offshore winds have keep the region balmy for weeks. But it has also dried out last year's grass and chaparral, fire officials have said.

Snow levels in the eastern Sierra Nevada, where Los Angeles gets much of its water from snow melt via the Owens Valley, are among the lowest on record for this time of year. Typically, the southern Sierra get several feet of snow in December, but the critical watershed is practically dry now.

On average, downtown Los Angeles gets about 15 inches of rain per year.

-- City News Service