Analyzing Nasty Alamo Fire in Santa Barbara County, California (credit: CIMSS)

DISCUSSION: Over the past 24 to 36 hours, there were increasingly more favorable conditions for greater and more widespread fire weather hazards across portions of Southern California.  More specifically, there were strengthened southwesterly to southeasterly winds which brought drier air into the region which made dry grasses and regional shrubbery more susceptible to ignition.  Despite there being fire weather hazards issued for the greater Southern California region, a wild fire did break out across parts of Santa Barbara County, California.  As shown in the images above, the aforementioned wild fire was relatively large based on its size relative to the bright lights located to the south of the fire (i.e, lights emanating from the city of Los Angeles, California).  In addition, note how well-dispersed the smoke plume was off to the southwest from the point-source of this wild fire.  This southwesterly smoke plume dispersion adds a secondary concern factor to the situation based on the fact that particles within dispersing smoke plumes can impact the operations of aircraft engine turbines.

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​ ©2017 Meteorologist Jordan Rabinowitz