A major factor explaining the rapid spread of wildfires this winter is the painful dry skies that accompanied the peak of Santa Ana’s wind season.

“Santa Anas are very common in December and January, and that’s when we typically see our strongest, largest and most damaging specimens. But we don’t normally have such dry conditions,” said Alex Tardy, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in San Diego.

January is peak season for Santa Ana winds – strong winds that occur when high pressure over Nevada and Utah sends cold air screaming toward areas of lower pressure along the California coast. Air dries, compresses and warms as it flows from the high deserts of the Northeast down over California’s mountains and through canyons, drying out vegetation as the wind blows through it.

The Santa Ana season generally begins in October and lasts through March, but the strength of the Santa Ana winds is typically strongest in January, Tardy said, citing research from the U.S. Forest Service and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. January is the centerpiece of a typical rainy season in California.

For many areas of Southern California, “this is the driest start to a water year ever,” Tardy said, “and you’re seeing extreme fire behavior with the ignitions.”

The only way for Southern California to permanently escape this harsh fire season is rain. And unfortunately, there is still no significant chance of rain until January 25, forecasters say.

Downtown Los Angeles has barely received a drop of water in months — just 0.16 inches since Oct. 1, or just 3% of the seasonal average. Typically, downtown Los Angeles averaged 5.45 inches of rain at this point in the water year. The annual average is 14.25 inches.

“As long as we don’t see any rain, it doesn’t take much. “The vegetation is just starving for moisture, and then when the wind blows on it, there’s definitely a risk of fire behavior,” Tardy said after ignition.

Fire weather conditions are expected to improve Wednesday night into Saturday. However, there is a moderate risk of another round of warning signals starting around Monday.