The wind is the big story Saturday as the National Weather Service has issued a gale warning for the entire Central Coast and Red Flag Warning for parts of Santa Barbara County.
Red flag warnings get issued when an area has been in a dry spell and has relative humidity at or below 25 percent and temperatures above 75 degrees.
Southern Santa Barbara County is hitting all of those check marks this weekend, making it a nail biting 48 hours for first responders as these factors could easily spread a fire.
Santa Barbara County Fire Department has prepositioned fire crews in several areas along the south coast and power is being shut off as well, to limit the chances of a wildfire.
Due to the critical fire weather today into Saturday and Sunday, we have approval from CalFire to upstaff the following on 9/6/19 through 0800 on Monday 9/9/19:
— Daniel Bertucelli (@SBCFireInfo) September 6, 2019
• Crew 1-1 and Dozers 1 & 2 (24 hrs.)
• Crew 1-2 (starting at 1200 hrs. today)
• WT18 with 2.0 staffing
Wind gusts could be 30-40 mph along the south coast and the high wind gusts could become more widespread.
Temperatures are on the downward swing, trending 5-10 degrees below normal.
This is due in part to a low pressure trough that is entering our area.
Our cooling trend will help keep the region dry and potentially influence the relative humidities that firefighters will be monitoring.
We are anticipating some low clouds and fog through the overnight hours that may even persist on the beaches throughout the day.
Hurricane Dorian has been downgraded to a tropical cyclone but still has hurricane force winds.
It's anticipated to be over Nova Scotia Saturday night.
This is the first hurricane to hit Canada in 10 years.
Enjoy the rest of your weekend!
