Mitt liv som Tobin

So far Pasadena has been relatively unaffected by the fires. This afternoon the sky filled with smoke; everything appears in a peculiar orange glow.

The above photo is linked to a NASA site with spaceborne imagery of the fires. Note the brown plumes coming off of Baja: that's just dust carried by the westward Santa Ana winds. Here's what Wikipedia says about [[Santa Ana winds]]:

Santa Anas are a type of föhn wind, the result of air pressure buildup in the high-altitude Great Basin between the Sierra Nevada and the Rocky Mountains. This high energy wind spills out of the Great Basin and is pulled by gravity into the surrounding lowlands. The air circulates clockwise around the high pressure area bringing winds from the east and northeast to Southern California (the reverse of the westerly winds characteristic of the latitude).

It is often said that the air is heated and dried as it passes through the Mojave and Sonoran Deserts, but according to meteorologists this is a popular misconception. The Santa Ana winds usually form during autumn and early spring when the desert is relatively cold, although they may form at virtually any time of year. The air heats up due to adiabatic heating while being compressed during its descent. While the air has already been dried by orographic lift prior to reaching the Great Basin, the relative humidity of the air declines rapidly as it descends and warms in its final stages as it passes over the Transverse and Peninsular Ranges.

The air is then forced down the mountain slopes out towards the Pacific coast; the air mass is further heated by compression as it drops in altitude before reaching the Los Angeles Basin, western San Diego County, and Tijuana (Baja California) at typical speeds of 35 knots. The southern California coastal region gets some of its hottest weather of the year during autumn while Santa Ana winds are blowing. During Santa Ana conditions it is typically hotter along the coast than in the deserts and the humidity plummets to less than 15%.

As the Santa Ana winds are channeled through the mountain passes they can approach hurricane force. The combination of wind, heat, and dryness turns the chaparral into explosive fuel for the infamous wildfires for which the region is known. Wildfires fanned by Santa Ana winds burned 721,791 acres (2,921 km²) in two weeks during October 2003.