'Volatile conditions' prompt red flag warnings across Southern California

A month after a devastating blaze in Southern California, red flag warnings have been issued across Los Angeles and parts of the region Monday as strong wind gusts could potentially cause “extremely rare and dangerous” fire conditions along with power outages, officials said.

The warnings are in effect from Monday through Wednesday night as damaging Santa Ana winds with gusts up to 40 to 65 mph will blow through, according to the National Weather Service in Los Angeles.

"This is a particularly dangerous situation with volatile conditions to cause fires that could spread rapidly and affect millions of people," Ariel Cohen, chief meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Los Angeles, told USA TODAY Monday.

Cohen said peak winds could reach up to 80 mph and were expected to occur late Monday night into Tuesday afternoon. The gusts will affect stretches in Los Angeles and Ventura counties including the Santa Monica Mountains and several coastal areas and valleys along the western San Fernando Valley. Cohen said residents should brace for possible evacuations as local authorities monitor the situation.

The warnings come about a month after a blaze raging northwest of Los Angeles known as the Mountain Fire, driven by strong winds burned tens of thousands of acres and destroyed and damaged hundreds of homes in western Ventura County. That blaze was the third most destructive wildfire in Southern California since at least 2013, Cohen said.

"As a result, there is the increasing threat for fire weather conditions to rival other historical fires in recent times including the Mountain and Thomas Fires," Monday's warning from the weather service added. "Dry offshore conditions will likely persist into Thursday morning."

Robert Munroe, another weather service meteorologist based in L.A., said the last time the region saw measurable rain was in late October and it has been more than six months or longer since the region has had "widespread meaningful" rainfall, except for the "occasional monsoon thunderstorms in the mountains and deserts late in the summer. In October, there was just "light rain off and on" for three days, he said, while most areas received less than a quarter of an inch and some foothill and mountain areas received a bit more.

"Since then, it's been dry, dry, dry," Munroe said. "And with relatively low humidity."

Santa Ana winds typically happen when air from a region of high pressure over dry desert flows westward toward low-pressure areas off the California coast. The activity commonly occurs in the fall around September and can last through the winter season through early spring.

Under a red flag warning, damaging wind gusts of 60 to 80 mph, likely along with humidity in the single digits, flow across windier mountains and foothills.

Power outages could also take effect as SoCal Edison notified more than 200,000 of its customers in the area that they may have to shut off their power as a precaution due to the red flag warnings.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Strong Santa Ana winds prompt red flag warnings in Southern California