Santa Ana Severity Index: Formulation, Validation, and Limitations

We are collaborating with the US Forest Service and the San Diego Gas & Electric utility regarding development of a severity index for Santa Ana winds that can accurately and succinctly convey the hazard with respect to large fires. Rolinski, D'Agostino and Vanderburg have submitted an abstract ("Categorization of Santa Ana Winds with respect to Large Fire Potential") overviewing the methodology. Our complementary poster presentation will demonstrate how the index was calculated and validated, and also discuss the significant challenges that were raised by the need to develop proxies for important fire-related variables that suffer from substantial limitations with respect to both spatial coverage and temporal extent.