NWS Still Calling For Possible 90 MPH Gusts At SM Mountain Tops in 4-Day Santa Ana

By sunrise tomorrow morning … strong Santa Ana winds will arrive at the Malibu coast.

They will dip tomorrow afternoon … but then … watch out.

Surface level winds will arrive with a vengeance tomorrow evening.

The National Weather Service says there will be a pressure imbalance will be 7 millibars from both the north and the east.

On top of that … the jet stream will drop in elevation … 

Add that up … we could see wind gusts of from 60 to 80 mph on the beaches. 

Some ridgetops may see 90 mph gusts or greater by sunrise Wednesday.

And because the winds are coming from due north … they may behave unpredictably when they slam into the east west cliffs of the Santa Monica Mountains above Malibu.

The National Weather Service discussion says this: 

“Of particular note is the possibility of the creation of strong breaking mountain waves. 

“These occur when very strong winds aloft intercept mountain tops at nearly perpendicular angles … which will happen with these events. 

“These are short lived and very difficult to predict.

“They can cause considerable local damage wherever they occur. 

Red Flag Warnings are up for Malibu and the Santa Monica Mountains as of 10 AM tomorrow … through at east 6 p-m Thursday. 

And the fire weather watch continues into Friday afternoon. 

We may get a second … very strong Santa Ana windstorm next week.

There is no rain in the forecast for the next 2 weeks.

And don’t forget … the local power company is warning that it may cut power to various circuits in Malibu as the winds develop.

The intentional blackouts could be pulled as early as 10 am Tuesday.  And the outages will last until up to 8 hours after the winds drop below the SCE thresholds, which may not be until Friday.

This Is Not Your Mother’s Santa Ana, As Polar Vortex Pushes Air West

UCLA climatologist Daniel Swain calls this week’s weather fairly unusual. 

Santa Ana winds in LA area usually caused by high pressure systems squashing desert air out to sea.

That’s not happening this week.

Usually there is a polar vortex of ultra-cold air that spins around the North Pole.

Instead … that jet stream has changed course … and is pushing down from the interior of central Canada towards the Pacific. 

The same polar vortex is also slamming the Midwest with record breaking snowfall right now.

As the Associated Press reports … scientists conclude that a fast-warming Arctic is partly to blame for the increasing frequency of the polar vortex shifting south.

So this week’s Santa Ana in Malibu will be cold … not hot.

And it will last a long time … not just a day or two… but for at least four days.

And a second blast like this may start next week as well.

Webster Campus Reopens Today

Webster Elementary School students will be attending classes back at the Webster campus today for the first time in four weeks.

Santa Monica Malibu school superintendent Antonio Shelton says crews worked over the Christmas vacation period to clean and restore the inside and outside of the Webster campus.

On December 9th … the Franklin Fire swept down Malibu Canyon and caused accumulated leaves to catch fire on the roof of the campus.

There was damage to the school’s electrical conduits … which run down the center breezeway between classrooms.

Plus, there was heavy smoke … and debris blown into the classrooms.

Webster classes had been moved down to the Malibu elementary campus on Point Dume.

This morning … Webster will resume back at the campus in Winter Canyon … 

Almost everything has been cleaned out … including all classroom contents, heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems, electronics, carpets, floors, and building exteriors.

The district superintendent says there are still additional cleaning tasks … including the library.

It’s a minimum day on Monday … at Webster … classes get out early.

This is the second time in 14 years that Webster barely escaped burning down in a brushfire..

Caltrans Quietly Drops Speed Limit On Section Of PCH In LA, But Not In Malibu

Without notice … without Caltrans officials making any announcement … it appears that the permanent speed limit on a section of Pacific Coast Highway has been dropped from 45 to 35 miles an hour. 

But not in Malibu.

The new 35 mile per hour permanent speed limit is a mile-or-so segment of PCH from Coastline to Sunset in the city of Los Angeles. 

Many Malibu residents … and the city council to be sure … have been campaigning for Caltrans to drop the speed limit in Malibu … particularly eastern Malibu. 

Officials at the state transportation department have repeated … over and over again .. that it simply cannot be down. 

They said the average speed of traffic on PCH is too fast … and that state law prohibits them from arbitrarily dropping speed limits.

That includes on roads where people are killed … by speeding cars … like the residential and business section of PCH where four Pepperdine students were mowed down and killed 14 months ago.

But last fall … Caltrans put up a temporary speed limit reduction … 45 miles to 35 miles per hour … in a construction zone at the landslide near Porto Marina drive.

The construction project is over … and last week … Caltrans put up permanent 35 mile an hour signs. 

That raises a whole lot of questions …

Like … why a speed limit reduction in L-A but not Malibu?

Did Caltrans conduct a speed survey there to determine if a speed limit reduction is legal?

Did the LA city council approve this?

One other change.

Caltrans has put up large blue signs along PCH … that say “YOU SPEED YOU PAY – DRIVE SAFE ON PCH.”

Santa Monica Reducing Speed Limits On 33 Miles Of Streets

Speed limits are being lowered on nearly every major Santa Monica street this month. 

33 miles of roadway are getting reductions of 5 miles per hour. 

Not enough to significantly delay drivers … but enough to seriously reduce injuries to people who get hit … say the traffic engineers. 

This is possible in Santa Monica because of a new state law.

It allows cities to take the surveyed speed and round down the speed limits, rather than round up.

That new law is not expected to significantly affect Malibu … because average traffic speeds are much higher than the posted speed limits on PCH. 

Second Pedestrian Mangled At Same SM Spot: Wilshire West of 26th

A second pedestrian has been struck down on Wilshire Boulevard … in eastern Santa Monica. 

Last night’s crash has left a man in grave condition … meaning he is near death.

The latest crash was also at Chelsea Avenue … near 26th Street … the same place where a woman was killed in a hit and run crash two weeks ago.

A man from nearby Pacific Palisades was arrested for suspicion of drunk driving and suspicion of murder in that crash.

Last night … at nine o’clock …. a man was run over and gravely injured at the same place … Wilshire at Chelsea … 

Last Saturday afternoon … a funeral was held for 85 year old Judy Mershon … who was killed at that same Wilshire at Chelsea intersection on December 22nd. 

UC Fire Camera’s Artificial Intelligence Calls Fire Department to Brushfire in OC

You may have seen those Internet cameras on mountaintops all across California … the alert California cameras operated by UC San Diego. 

The “AlertCalifornia” cameras are programmed to look for fires … and notify authorities when they spot one.

That’ exactly what happened last month .. when a mountaintop camera near Santa Ana spotted a wildfire in a remote canyon up on Santiago Peak. 

The University of California San Diego’s ALERTCalifornia camera network’s artificial intelligence picked it up.

The computer alerted the Orange County Fire Authority of a an “anomaly” … a possible fire. 

The anomaly turned out to be a vegetation fire in Black Star Canyon, east of Irvine Lake.

Orange County Fire says this fire was solely detected by the UC San Diego camera … strategically located to monitor high-risk areas across Orange County.” 

“This location is not heavily trafficked at night, which likely contributed to the fact that zero reports of smoke or fire came in from the public.”

The fire crews got an early jump.

They were able to contain the fire to less than a quarter of an acre, and there were no injuries, evacuations or homes burned.

No cause was given for the fire.

“This is the first fire that was located exclusively by Artificial Intelligence” … the Orange County officials said. 

Without it, the blaze could have spread significantly before anyone noticed it, the agency added.

About 25 of these automatic cameras are watching the Malibu and western Santa Monica mountains area … watching for fire. 

You can actually pull up the video feeds … on the web.

Go to alertcalifornia.org .

SMMUSD Wants To Increase Rent Charged To City Of Malibu To ‘Commercial Rates’

The city of Malibu currently pays rent to the Santa Monica Malibu school district … to use school yards as city parks … in a city that is starved for municipal parks. 

And the school district says it is losing money on the deal.

The city has been paying a rate that is below what it costs the school district to maintain the grass … the basketball courts … the tennis courts and the swimming pool at Malibu High. 

The city has been paying $7.20 per hour for tennis courts to $114.48 per hour for the community swimming pol at malibu High.

There district wants to increase that by 25% this year … another 25% next year … and then even more in three years.

The district says it will be charging hr city its “Commercial Rate” . Whatever that is.…

There are frequent complaints that locks to 

Weather for the Malibu

A dangerous Santa Ana will start to develop tonight.

While the surface flow … the pressure imbalance … is only moderate at the surface.

But the jet flow is bearing down on us. 

Santa Anas will hit the western Santa Monica Mountains in the Malibu area around dawn tomorrow.

They will back off Tuesday afternoon … but come back in a major way Tuesday night.

The peak winds of 60 to 80 miles per hour on the beaches … 90 miles an hour at the mountaintops or in canyons  … likely Wednesday at sunrise.