Santa Ana Winds of Southern California: Their climatology, extremes, and behavior spanning six and a half decades

Santa Ana Winds (SAWs) are an integral feature of the regional climate of Southern California/Northern Baja California region, but their climate-scale behavior is poorly understood. In the present work,we identify SAWs in mesoscale dynamical downscaling of a global reanalysis from 1948 to 2012. Model windsare validated with anemometer observations. SAWs exhibit an organized pattern with strongest easterlywinds on westward facing downwind slopes and muted magnitudes at sea and over desert lowlands. Weconstruct hourly local and regional SAW indices and analyze elements of their behavior on daily, annual, andmultidecadal timescales. SAWs occurrences peak in winter, but some of the strongest winds have occurred infall. Finally, we observe that SAW intensity is influenced by prominent large-scale low-frequency modes ofclimate variability rooted in the tropical and north Pacific ocean-atmosphere system.