Santa Anas are a type of foehn wind[?], the result of air pressure buildup in the high-altitude Great Basin between the Sierra Nevada and the Rocky Mountains. The air is forced down the mountain slopes and out towards the western Pacific coast; the air mass is heated by compression[?] as it falls and further heated and dried by a trip through the deserts of southeastern California before reaching the Los Angeles Basin[?] at typical speeds of 35 knots.
The combination of wind, heat, and dryness is notoriously conducive to wildfires.
A similar phenomenon in the Rocky Mountains is called the Chinook winds[?].
There is also a band named the Santa Ana Winds[?].
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