![]() ![]() Weather conditions are expected to continue to change as the county is expected to get rainfall most of next week, starting with the rainstorms seen Friday. While researchers have said that beetle killed trees aren’t more likely to start wildfires, they have recognized those trees burn quicker than healthy trees once they ignite, which can cause a fire to spread. “This is definitely a canary in a coal mine type of moment,” Garcia said.Īdditionally, bark beetles can cause high mortality rates in trees. However, the Bay Area is in a severe drought and parts of Northern California are in an extreme drought. The Monterey Bay is one of the better areas of the state right now and is only classified as a moderate drought by the U.S. While the state isn’t in a drought emergency, parts of California are experiencing bad drought conditions. “It set things up to be a tinder box across the state.” “It kind of set the stage for long-term impact in our vegetation,” Garcia said. Although California isn’t in a drought emergency anymore, the trees still take time to rehydrate. Trees in the area became dried out as a result of the drought. The issue of having fires in January can be linked to the nearly 8-year drought California experienced within the last decade, according to Garcia. (Shmuel Thaler – Santa Cruz Sentinel file) 15 as a northwest swell that continued to roll powerful sets onto the Santa Cruz County coastline. Waves crash along East Cliff Drive in Pleasure Point Dec. Violent winds across the county resulted in several downed trees, power lines and wildfires, which forced approximately 120 homes to be evacuated in the Boulder Creek, Aptos Hills and Watsonville areas and left nearly 24,000 residents without power across the county. “That pattern we typically don’t see this time of year.” “When we set up that pressure differential, that’s when we get strong winds,” Garcia said. The collision of different temperatures and pressures create extreme weather events. However, that jet stream dived south and collided with the warm, high-pressure bubble that was sitting over the Bay Area. Usually, the jet stream hits the Pacific Northwest and creates storms there. This is what causes the storms in the north and the swells along the coast. In La Niña years, a low-pressure jet stream sweeps the north Pacific. Typically, the swell brings storms with it, but this year the California coast got the benefit of the big swells and got to enjoy nice weather. Sometimes that activity passes the contiguous United States and head toward Hawai’i, in other cases, it hits landfall sooner in California, he said. In a La Niña year, the North Pacific becomes very active with storms, which creates a lot of ocean activity. The waves are the result of this being a La Niña year, according to Garcia. People at Lighthouse Point in Santa Cruz are enveloped in a thick fog on the morning of Jan. Several people have been swept into the ocean this year, and a junior sailing class experienced a troubling day on the water at the mouth of the Santa Cruz Harbor on Jan. The high surf proved to be a problem to people throughout the county. Large waves started to pound the coast in early December. “Trying to keep on top of it all constantly is a daunting feat.” “It just seems like it’s been all over the map in the last several months,” Garcia said. Brian Garcia, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service, Bay Area, said he doesn’t think he’s seen weather such as this throughout his more than 11 years as a California meteorologist. While California is no stranger to extreme weather, between droughts and floods, it is unusual to see such erratic weather compressed into a relatively short time. ![]() SANTA CRUZ – Santa Cruz and the greater Bay Area have been the spectacles of powerful and polar weather events in recent months. ![]()
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