San Diego County will get slammed Wednesday and Thursday by Santa Ana winds that will be powerful enough to spread major wildfires and cause extensive damage, including snapping limbs off trees, says the National Weather Service.

“This has the potential to be the worst Santa Ana of the season,” said Bruno Rodriquez, a weather service forecaster. “The risk of wildfires is extremely critical. The conditions will be conducive for the very rapid growth of fires. They would be erratic and difficult to control.”

San Diego Gas & Electric notified nearly 33,000 customers across inland San Diego County and southern Orange County on Monday afternoon that they might experience public safety power outages during the wind storm to minimize the chance that power lines will spark wildfires.

The weather service says that the winds will begin blowing through San Diego County’s mountains and valleys late Tuesday night and progressively grow stronger, peaking on Wednesday morning. Winds will gust 50 mph to 55 mph in places like Ramona and Alpine, and 30 mph to 40 mph in areas like Poway, Valley Center and Escondido.


It’s also possible that the winds will gust to 80 mph at Big Black Mountain near Warner Springs.

The winds will fade in the afternoon. But Rodriquez says that equally powerful winds will return early Thursday morning.

The relative humidity will be less than 10 percent in much of inland San Diego County. The daytime highs will be in the low 70s on Wednesday and mid 70s on Thursday.

A red flag fire weather warning — and a high wind warning — will go into effect in all areas of the county except the coast at 11 a.m. Wednesday. The warning will last until 6 p.m Thursday.


Rodriguez said the weather service is especially concerned about the next windstorm “because we have had a series of Santa Anas that have left things very dry.”

The latest round of winds hit early Monday, producing gusts of 50 mph or more in parts of inland San Diego County.

SDG&E said the potential public safety areas that could experience widespread or partial outages include: Alpine, Boulevard, Campo, Descanso, Dulzura, El Cajon, Encinitas, Escondido, Jacumba, Jamul, Julian, Lakeside, Mount Laguna, Pala, Palomar Mountain, Pauma Valley, Pine Valley, Potrero, Poway, Ramona, Ranchita, Rancho Sante Fe, San Clemente, San Juan Capistrano, Santa Ysabel, Valley Center and Warner Springs.

