After a few days of persistent rain this week, Thanksgiving will bring clear and warm weather – albeit windy – across Southern California.

“We expect temperatures to warm a few degrees each day; We expect highs in the low to mid 70s through the weekend,” said Ryan Kittell, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard. It will be “a very nice Thanksgiving weekend.”

The transition to a relatively weak wind event in Santa Ana is driving the weather change. The offshore winds tend to create warmer and drier conditions across the Southland and typically bring an increased risk of wildfires.

However, Kittell said winds arriving Thursday are not expected to be very strong, and recent rainfall from back-to-back pockets of rain – albeit light – helped ease those concerns. Southern California received less than an inch of rain last week, but most areas received less than an inch.

“That’s enough to give us a few days where the fire danger is relatively low,” Kittell said. “We have enough to slow things down a bit.”

Wind gusts of 20 to 30 mph are forecast across most of the region, but higher gusts could occur in some wind-prone corridors such as the San Fernando and Santa Clarita valleys. He said the windy weather should really only be an option for those hosting Thanksgiving events outdoors.

But any wind can always create a fire hazard, especially when humidity is low and the rainy season has just begun, he said.

“We’re not out of the woods yet,” Kittell said. “Anytime it’s windy and a fire starts in the right place, a fire can happen.”