Election Day winds to bring Bay Area red flag warning for fire danger, possible power shutdowns

Election Day 2024 in the Bay Area and California will unfold against the backdrop of fierce winds, dangerous fire conditions and a planned power shutdown by PG&E, officials and forecasters said Monday.

“We have a low-pressure pattern set up in the lower Southwest desert, and that’s setting up some serious offshore flow in the Bay Area,” National Weather Service meteorologist Roger Gass said. “It’s generally going to be in the uphill peaks, but we can’t rule out that those gusts will be strong closer to the surface, too.”

All of which is gonna make for a far-from-ordinary weather day as people head to the polls. Similar conditions last month led to a near-disaster in the Oakland Hills after a wildfire broke out near Interstate 580 and burned 15 acres.

The weather service issued a red flag warning for critically dangerous fire conditions that goes into effect at 11 a.m. on Tuesday and extends until 7 a.m. on Thursday. The interior East Bay and central coastal areas, Peninsula, Santa Cruz and the city of San Francisco are included in the warning.

The red flag warning will allow California fire crews to stage additional personnel in dangerous areas as a preventative measure in case a fire begins. Fire crews credited the warning for helping them to keep the Keller Fire last month from being worse.

Winds blowing from the northwest and toward the ocean are expected to blow consistently between 20-30 mph, and the gusts could reach 50 mph, according to the weather service. The relative humidity during the daytime could be as low as 15%.

“It’s gonna be critically dry,” Gass said.

So much so that PG&E late Sunday announced that it may cut power to 15,000 customers in 17 counties and three tribal area in a Public Safety Power Shutoff. The utility said the shutdowns would not begin before 7 p.m. and that just one polling location — the Calpine Geothermal Visitor Center in Lake County — is in its scope.

PG&E said that location wouldn’t be shut down until 9:30 p.m. at the earliest, and only if conditions don’t change. Customers that may be affected will be notified via email, text of phone call, the utility said. They did not specify which Bay Area counties were included.

“The biggest peak for the winds is going to be Tuesday night into Wednesday,” Gass said. “But we think the winds will linger into Thursday, so we extended it just in case.”

Gass added that when the wind finally dies, the Bay Area may be bracing for the onset of more wet stuff.

“As we get into the weekend and into early next week, rain chances enter the picture,” he said. “It’s a week out, so the confidence that we’ll definitely get some is not as high as the confidence that we have that there will be a change in the pattern.”