A view of the Palisades fire on January 9. The strong Santa Ana winds that fueled much of the L.A. wildfires destruction are expected to relax for a few days. Tayfun Coskun / Anadolu via Getty ImagesThe fires around Los Angeles continue to rage on, after scorching some40,000 acres of drought-parched land. The Palisades and Eaton fires have together killed at least 27 people and displaced tens of thousands more, making them some of the deadliest fires in California history.In recent days, however, the regions powerful Santa Ana windswhich have been fanning the flameshave begun to slow down. This lull has offered firefighters a reprieve and a key opportunity to make progress against the blazes, but forecasts suggest the Santa Ana will return next week. What are these gusts, and how have they become so strong?This is not a typical Santa Ana, but this is the time of year when you expect it, Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California Los Angeles, said in a livestream, per Voxs Umair Irfan.The Santa Ana winds are a seasonal occurrence in Southern California. They push inland air from the desert over Californias mountains, making it grow warmer and drier as it reaches the coast. As the winds funnel through canyons and valleys toward L.A., they gather speed.This year, ocean heat has likely made the winds even stronger. Warming oceans can cause the jet streama narrow, high-altitude current of fast-moving air that influences weather across the continentto move off course. This can create a patchwork of high- and low-pressure systems over California that supercharge the Santa Ana winds. Last week, gusts were as high as 100 miles per hour.These ocean heat waves are becoming stronger and larger because of heat trapped by increased human-generated greenhouse gases, so these persistent and unusual weather patterns will probably become more common, says Jennifer Francis, a senior scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center, to Bloombergs Lauren Rosenthal and Brian K Sullivan.The Santa Ana winds are a natural part of the states weather and have exacerbated wildfires beforebut when these gusts are paired with abnormally dry conditions fueled by climate change, it can make them especially destructive.These winds come every year, Crystal Kolden, a fire scientist at the University of California, Merced, told National Geographics Alejandra Borunda in 2020. The question is: Are they going to come when its wet or when its dry?For 2025, its the latter: Winter usually brings rainfall to Southern California, but that hasnt been the case this year. We havent had any substantial rain for hundreds of days, says Max Moritz, a wildfire specialist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, to NBC News Denise Chow.The regions current dry spell follows two wet winters, which led to exceptional vegetation growth, as Swain tells Elizabeth Kolbert at Yale Environment 360. Then, the rain stopped, in what Swain has called hydroclimate whiplash, or a sudden shift between wet and dry weather. After months without rain, all that vegetation has become fuel for fire. The winds then contributed to the fires fast-moving and erratic spread, helping them blaze through a heavily populated area, leading to a lot of destruction.While the region is currently getting a break from the Santa Ana, meteorologists expect the winds to pick back up early next week.Next week is a concern, wrote the National Weather Service Los Angeles in a post on X on Wednesday. While confident that we will NOT see a repeat of last week, dangerous fire weather conditions are expected.As of today, the Eaton fire has reached 65 percent containment and the Palisades fire is 31 percent contained, according to Cal Fire.The long-term effects of the wildfires remain to be seen. Once the health impacts from exposure to smoke, which contains pollutants and dangerous fine particles, are fully understood, the eventual death toll is likely to rise dramatically, writes Jeff Masters for Yale Climate Connections.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: California, Climate Change, Death, Global Warming, Natural Disasters, Weather, Wildfire