This story is original shows the Top Country News and part of Climate Table collaboration.

In Southern California, December fires are somewhat unusual but not completely out of the ordinary. And this year, extremely dry conditions and high winds in Santa Ana have created the perfect recipe for dangerous wildfires later in the year.

On the night of December 9, the Franklin Fire twinkling in the hills above Malibu, tear all overh about 3,000 hectares in just 24 hours. As of noon on December 12, the fire was less than 10 percent contained, burning more than 4,000 hectares and destroying at least. seven structures.

Last month, the Mountain Fire burned under similar conditions in nearby Ventura County, which grew to 1,000 hectares in the first hour. Within two days it was more than 20,000 hectares; 240 structures were destroyed before firefighters brought them under control in early December.

And it still hasn’t rained—not since the Mountain Fire, not during the entire rainy season.

It’s true that the Santa Ana wind—dry air that blows from the high desert toward the coast and brings low humidity, sometimes below 10 percent—always takes hold in the fall and winter. But what is not so normal is the lack of rain holding Southern California today, although the region is not technically a drought yet.

There is a weather station in downtown Los Angeles recorded Just 5.7 inches of rain this year, and less than a quarter-inch fell in December, which is typically the middle of the region’s rainy season. Most years would have seen three or more wet days this season, enough to prevent some fire danger; about 90 percent of the region’s rainfall COME between October and the end of April.

“We are still waiting for the start of the rainy season in that part of the state, which will significantly wet the fuels and put the threat of large fires,” said. John Abatzoglouis a professor of climatology at the University of California, Merced.

In more rainy years, windy weather presents a lower risk of fire. But now, “when the ignitions and the wind collide,” as Abatzoglou said, the scene is ready for fire. The dry grass and trees are ready to burn, and the fire hazard forecast by the Los Angeles County Fire Department on December 11, the day the fire grew very high, high or very high throughout the Los Angeles Basin, Santa Monica Mountains, and Santa Clarita Valley. “It hasn’t rained this season in Southern California,” he said Daniel Swaina climate scientist at UCLA. “That’s the key. That’s the real kicker.”

High winds that coincide with bone-dry crops aren’t just a problem in Southern California. Dry conditions have raised fire danger across the country—during the East CoastSpring and fall fire seasons, for example. And winter fires have broken out elsewhere in the West: the fast moving Colorado Marshall Fire It flashed on December 30, 2021, from a small grass fire to a suburban fire—one that eventually burned more than 1,000 homes—in just one hour.