The water system used to fight the Palisades fire in Los Angeles buckled under the demands of what turned out to be the most destructive fire in city history, with some hydrants running dry as they were overstressed without assistance from firefighting aircraft for hours early Wednesday.
San Diego is facing its driest start to the 24-25 water year with a more than three-inch rainfall deficit and there’s no relief in sight.
With only 0.14 inches of rain since Oct. 1, 2024 to date, this will be the driest start ever to San Diego’s water year which runs from the beginning of October through Sept. 30. Rainfall records date back to 1850.
Even in San Diego, it’s typical to get some rain in the winter. Except this year, the San Diego County Water Authority said it’s the third driest start to the rainy season in 150 years.
Hear from Water Authority Senior Water Resources Specialist Efren Lopez about where San Diego’s water supply stands during this very dry start to the 2025 Water Year.
Maybe we ought to change the name Valley Center to “Shut-off City!”
Besides one holiday shut-down greeting from SDG&E three weeks ago and another post-New Year kick in the teeth this week, add a 10-day water shutdown by the San Diego County Water Authority (SDCWA) that began December 7—to be followed two months later by another shut-down.
The National Weather Service has issued a red flag warning through Thursday for San Diego County’s mountains and valleys.
“Our brush is dry, the (humidity) is down, and now we have this wind event,” said Brent Pascua, a battalion chief with Cal Fire. “That’s a prime recipe for a large wildfire.”
San Diego Gas & Electric said early Wednesday that it is rapidly turning off power to many of its customers to help minimize the chances of sparking a wildfire as strong Santa Ana winds continue to lash San Diego County.
Winds gusted more than 40 mph at Camp Pendleton before dawn Wednesday and 80 mph at Palomar Mountain as the first of two large windstorms hit the region. The winds could intensify through mid-morning, according to the National Weather Service. The second wave will arrive late Thursday, and it’s possible a third wave will occur on Sunday.
A remarkably wet kickoff to Northern California’s rainy season has coincided with a desperately dry fall in Southern California — a huge disparity, perhaps unprecedented, between the haves and have-nots of rainfall.
Los Angeles usually gets several inches of rain by now, halfway into the rainy season, but it’s only recorded a fifth of an inch downtown since July, its second driest period in almost 150 years of record-keeping. The rest of Southern California is just as bone-dry.
Southern California is extremely dry right now, with huge portions of the region having seen less than a quarter-inch of rain in the last eight months. The landscape is parched and vegetation is withered, making the area dangerously susceptible to burning, an unusual situation for January.
“The sort of dryness we’re seeing in a lot of the plant species right now mirrors what you would typically expect in October or early November, when the rainy season starts,” said Jonathan O’Brien, a meteorologist with the U.S. Forest Service.
San Diego County — in the midst of one of the driest periods on record — will be lashed by unusually cold and expansive Santa Ana winds early Wednesday that could spark wildfires, snap trees and knock out power, the National Weather Service said.
The enormous wind storm will shoot into Orange, Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino counties on Tuesday morning, then expand into San Diego County, which hasn’t had significant rain since last spring.
