Smoke from the Simi valley fire called the Sandy Fire is coming north past Santa Barbara

 I was taking a picture of the sunset and I almost missed the smoke because it is brownish colored smoke you often see when underbrush burns like in Southern California. I suddenly realized what I was looking at. It was smoke from Simi Valley being blown north at about 7000 feet altitude or higher in a long drawn out brown haze about where the sun was setting over the coastal range and above the coastal range.

Then at about 8:40pm Tuesday night there was a power outage after it got dark in Santa Barbara for at least 1/2 an hour. Luckily, my wife and I had our phones nearby us so we had some light so we didn't just fall down and hurt ourselves in the complete dark and pitch black of no lights at all.

Then we noticed after the power came back on that the winds were blowing to the north and they felt like a Santa Ana Wind off the deserts but instead of blowing out to sea they seemed to be blowing north up along the Coastal Range in back of Santa Barbara. So, these winds could cause a problem if the winds keep blowing north from Simi Valley.

However, it's also true that Simi Valley is about 1 1/2 hours south by car on the 101 Freeway too so hopefully this isn't something people in Santa Barbara should presently be worried about.

However, places like Las Virgines road where it goes down to the ocean in Malibu might be vulnerable to these winds off the deserts and wherever they go after that (usually out to sea) but not right now at least here in Santa Barbara.

However, the other point is that winds change all sorts of different directions in the nights compared to the days in a Santa Ana Wind storm as well.