Forecasters in Southern California expect to issue a red flag fire weather warning starting Monday, with the 'risk of large fire growth' should ignitions occur.

The winds are common in California in the colder months, but they can sometimes help spread dangerous wildfires.

The weather set-up is key to the Santa Ana winds blowing. They occur when a large area of high pressure becomes established over the interior of western US, centred around the Great Basin, which includes much of Nevada and parts of Utah, Idaho and south ...

dvt_santa_ana_winds.png If winds several thousand feet above the ground are also from the north or northeast, as they would be when an upper-level low-pressure system is swirling over Arizona, southern Nevada or northwestern Mexico, those stronger winds ...

The winds fueling Southern California wildfires form when a high-pressure system develops over the Great Basin in Utah and Nevada

The Santa Ana winds become particularly dangerous when combined with other climate conditions such as drought, which increases the risk of wildfires like the ones currently raging in the Los Angeles area.

The Santa Ana Winds are named after a Los Angeles-area mountain range, but the source of them actually comes from hundreds of miles away.

Santa Ana winds are feared by Californians because they are fast-moving, dry and extremely warm—conditions that can turn a tiny spark into a raging blaze that is difficult for firefighters to control.

The devastating fires across Southern California are being driven by the Santa Ana winds, as incredibly dry and windy conditions continue to heighten the fire danger

The intense and fast-moving fires that have cut a path of destruction through the suburbs of Los Angeles, killing at least two people, are being driven by the region's powerful Santa Ana winds, with gusts that in some cases surpass hurricane-strength.

The National Weather Service has issued an extreme weather warning of a life-threatening and destructive windstorm

Helping drive the wildfires in the US city of Los Angeles are the so-called Santa Ana winds, a weather phenomenon known to dry out "the hills and the nerves to flash point." For Joan Didion, they blew "sandstorms out along Route 66,