By Nella Nelson –
The howling rush of wind begins, sometimes in the middle of the night, thrusting abundant dust and leaves into the air. The dry conditions of fall-winter in southern California signal the inevitable Santa Anas as we know them, a shock to visitors who escape their frosty norms to this desert-like phenomenon. Tiny whirlwinds of dusty tornados spin around our neighborhoods, depositing debris that calls for days of porch sweeping and fire proofing. Yes, the threat of fires and then actual wildfires usually follow in succession and spread at lightning speed, fueled by continuing gale force winds. Then come the power outages, the fallen trees and broken street signs. It’s an all too familiar annual sight for So Cal residents.
A peek back in time to early California shows us relatable experiences and a history of studying the Santa Anas with the science behind it. The Santa Ana winds are almost a part of the south coast’s character, even mentioned in literature and movies (such as The Holiday and books by T.C. Boyle). In “Two Years Before the Mast,” Richard Henry Dana recounts a “violent northeaster” in 1836 that forced his ship, the Pilgrim, to leave its anchorage in San Pedro and seek refuge in the leeside of Santa Catalina Island. In his memoir, “Sixty Years in Southern California,” the Jewish-German Angeleno Harris Newmark recalls an 1865 windstorm that “struck Los Angeles amidships, unroofing many houses and blowing down orchards.”
Several misnomers exist about the winds, though, the first being that it’s a “desert” wind that originates in a desert location. Though actual high pressure builds over the Utah/Nevada desert in the previous months (summer through September), it then flows outward toward coastal low-pressure systems. The air is then squeezed and warmed down the Sierra mountain slopes. Once the warm air compresses through canyons (namely the Santa Ana canyon), it intensifies like water flowing through a narrower stream. This causes a dramatic drop in humidity. The resulting wind is extremely dry, hot and fast.
By the 1880s, the name was being used to describe the winter winds in Los Angeles and Pasadena, and by the early 1900s, the term was adopted by official government publications. This was a great annoyance to the residents of Santa Ana (and especially its chamber of commerce), since some people talked as if the winds only struck their town. Terry Stephenson reports that when he became editor of the Santa Ana Register in 1906 the chamber demanded he never use the name in print. Santa Ana folks preferred “Riverside Winds,” since they came from that direction. Others took to calling them “Santana Winds,” which is really just a colloquial way of pronouncing Santa Ana among Spanish speakers. By the ‘teens, some had taken it a step further, claiming that “Santana” was a Chumash or native word – “an idea founded on fancy, not on fact” Stephenson notes. It was sometimes translated as “big wind,” or “Devil Wind,” or “The Wind of the Evil Spirits.” This may have led to the claim that Santa Ana (or Santana, take your pick) was a corruption of “Satan Wind.” More imaginative is the notion first floated in the 1920s that the name should be “Santa Anna Winds,” in honor of the Mexican general, whose famed cavalry charges also raised up vast clouds of dust.
According to Etymology of the name “Santa Ana winds”, as revealed in the archives of the Los Angeles Times newspaper, the origin and cause of the Santa Ana winds were not in dispute, the origin of the name was. According to the most common and accepted explanation, the winds derive their name from the Santa Ana canyon of Orange County, south of Los Angeles and near the city of Santa Ana. The winds were described as early as the 1840s during the Mexican War. When American forces marching from San Diego to Los Angeles camped at Olive in January 1847, Major William Emory reported: “The wind blew a hurricane, (something very unusual in this part of California,) and the atmosphere was filled with particles of fine dust, so that one could not see and but with difficulty breathe.”
The Los Angeles Times started publication in 1881. The first reference found to ‘Santa Ana winds’ in the paper appeared five years later, on Sept. 7, 1886. A classified advertisement for ranches consisting of “fine valley land” was offered, having “no fogs nor Santa Ana winds.” Editor Terry Stephenson wrote the definitive essay on the name for the California Folklore Quarterly in 1943. The old timers, he reports, “have always known that the wind got its name because it swept out of the mouth of the Santa Ana Canyon.” Even Jim Sleeper – a loyal native son of Santa Ana – admitted that the name comes from the canyon.
For a more in-depth reading about the history of the Santa Anas, I highly recommend the PBS article https://www.pbssocal.org/shows/lost-la/the-devil-wind-a-brief-history-of-the-santa-anas
The site contains further accounts, photographs and fascinating stories.
Sources:
https://people.atmos.ucla.edu/fovell/LATimes_SantaAna.html January 2018
https://www.ochistoryland.com/sawinds
https://www.pbssocal.org/shows/lost-la/the-devil-wind-a-brief-history-of-the-santa-anas
