Whew! San Diego and the rest of Southern California caught a real break over the last 12 hours when the Santa Ana that threatened us with dangerous fire conditions decided to spare the region.
Now, it's hot and drier than it should be, but those gusty, devilish northeast winds just never took hold.
It was becoming apparent that the winds would be less than projected by midday Thursday, prompting the National Weather Service to cancel the fire weather watch the agency had issued during the early morning hours. The Red Flag warning and high wind advisory in place for all of the counties north of San Diego are also set to expire at 2 p.m. Friday.
Since early Thursday we've seen only a few sporadic wind gusts surpass the 40 mph mark and Friday, when winds were expected to be at their worst for San Diego County, it just didn't happen.
At tops we've seen only a few gusts of wind around 30 mph and then only in the mountains themselves; nothing threatening reached the coast or even the inland valleys.
That has also prevented those expected very low humidity levels from reaching across the county. This too has been great news for local firefighters who have been on stand-by all week, knowing how devastating October wildfires can be in San Diego County.
San Diego County's two worst wildfires in recent years have both taken place during the month: the Witch Fire in 2007 and the State's largest wildfire ever, the Cedar Fire which started near Julian on Oct. 25, 2003 and grew from 50 acres to more than 5,000 in a matter of hours, fueled quickly by strong Santa Ana winds.
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Still it's a hot, dry Friday and Saturday is expected to be even hotter.
So even without the wind, the current weather situation means the danger of wildfires is greater than normal and everyone is urged to take every precaution to insure that not even a small fire gets started.
