Over the weekend, the southwestern United States broke record high temperatures with highs in the 90s for some! As we head into the work week the strong ridge of high pressure responsible for the strong down-sloping winds that brought high temperatures to the southwest breaks down. A trough of low pressure dives in and the potential record heat comes to a close. Temperatures will still remain above seasonable for Monday but should return to average by Tuesday.

However, with dryer soils and strong winds still expected, the fire weather conditions will still remain.

Monday Record Highs

A number of record highs happened Saturday across southern California again, with some spots reaching above 90°! San Diego also reported the warmest January temperature ever on record. Temperatures will be slightly cooler today, but still 15-20° above average for this time of year.

High Winds & Coastal Alerts

As this ridge starts to break down the winds will still remain gusty and possibly damaging. In the valley’s north winds up to 20-35 mph and gusts up to 50 mph will be possible and in the mountains northeast winds up to 45 mph with gusts between 55 to 80 mph are possible.  On Monday, some gusts were as high as 90-100 mph across the state!

High wind warnings are in effect in yellow and wind advisories are in effect in brown from Monday through Tuesday evening.

With these wind alerts and flow coming off the Pacific, coastal alerts including high surf advisories in purple and beach hazard statements in teal have been issued through Monday afternoon. Large breaking waves up to 22 feet are possible.

Fire Weather Concern

With strong winds in the forecast and low relative humidity, Red Flag Warnings are in place over the next several days.

We will be tracking this warm weather and fire weather forecast on WeatherNation so check us out for free on Roku, AppleTV, Amazon Fire and PlutoTV on Channel 217.