A “particularly dangerous situation red flag warning” has been issued for parts of Southern California, as more extreme winds are expected to impact the region and deadly fires continue to burn.
The rare, National Weather Service-issued PDS warning is for “extremely rare and dangerous fire weather conditions that have previously led to large and dangerous deadly wildfires.”
In effect for parts of Los Angeles and Ventura counties through noon Wednesday, the PDS red flag warning signals that “this setup is about as bad as it gets,” the NWS says.
However, as member station LAist reports, the PDS red flag warning has already been issued a few other times in recent months — an indication of the extreme weather Southern California is facing.
The “particularly dangerous situation” term was first used in the 1980s as guidance for tornado watches, says Marc Chenard, a meteorologist at the NWS Weather Prediction Center. Since then, it’s been used for other hazards, such as flash flood watches, to “signal more extreme events.”