The beautiful weather that southern Californians enjoy throughout much of the year comes with a price at times. This year their Christmas present is a Red Flag Warning for Christmas day and Thursday for areas in Ventura and Los Angeles Counties. The warm, dry, weather with breezy offshore winds will persist through Saturday.

For Christmas day and Thursday weather forecasters are predicting wind gusts of 45 to 50 mph in the mountains and gusts between 35 and 40 in wind prone valleys. Relative humidities will reach into the lower teens by late Wednesday morning and into the single digits on Thursday. These weather conditions paired with extraordinarily dry fuels will produce elevated to critical fire weather conditions.

The Red Flag Warning map was current as of 4:40 p.m. PST on Tuesday. Red Flag Warnings can change throughout the day as the National Weather Service offices around the country update and revise their forecasts.

Thanks go out to Ken