Beware the Santa Anas

Anyone who's ever lived in SoCal will be familiar with the Santa Ana Winds. This is a weather phenomena that happens in the Fall and early Winter in which the wind direction changes. Instead of the typical sea breeze coming off the ocean the air you get is a hot, fast, dusty wind coming from the Mojave Desert.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Ana_wind

In a typical year the Santa Ana winds contribute to forest fires, brown skies (from the dust) and high air conditioner use. But the events at the end of season 3 have added a new problem, radioactive fallout from Fort Irwin.

I don't think that the fallout from one nuke will make the area uninhabitable, and it won't kill the surviving humans outright. But it will increase the risk of cancer among the survivors, and birth defects among their future children. And it might damage, or destroy any crops they manage to grow at the Colony. And who knows what it will do to the Zombies. We already know that, unlike humans, the Little Ones are actively mutating. How is radiation going to impact that?

So, how is this added complication going to effect the story going forward?

I will have to digest this kind of information ... One question though: Would the radioactive fall-out of a nuke be transported over such a distance to remain a danger?

Even with a fairly high wind speed, it would still have s very wide dispersal. How much fallout material per square mile would be required to have an effect directly on people? Animals? Plant life?

Some concentration would occur naturally due to run off and the great circle of life would concentrate the material absorbed by plant life into the herbivores & then the carnivores. But this is all gonna take a long time.

Good theory too about how radioactivity might affect the Little Ones...

I've been relistening, and noticed that there is a reference to the Santa Ana winds in Chapter 18. Kelly mentions how much hotter it feels because a Santa Ana is blowing.

Warning, spontaneous side note!

I have kept thinking about all things nuclear. Thanks to Cabbage Patch, I would like to add a small detail to a different radiation source: spent fuel pools. These facilities require intact cooling circuits because otherwise they probably become (minor) radiation emitting sources within short periods of time. And those facilities are usually quite close to nuclear power plants.

Sorry if I just bombed this thread, it was not my intention to do so.

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Originally Posted by Cabbage Patch

I've been relistening, and noticed that there is a reference to the Santa Ana winds in Chapter 18. Kelly mentions how much hotter it feels because a Santa Ana is blowing.

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Totally missed that. But wasn't that back around the original Colony visit? So that would have been about August, right? But the nukes went of in mid-December. Aren't the Santa Anas seasonal? Would there be a fair amount of settling of the fallout before they kicked up again?

Looks like I need to do some research.....

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Originally Posted by scbubba

Totally missed that. But wasn't that back around the original Colony visit? So that would have been about August, right? But the nukes went of in mid-December. Aren't the Santa Anas seasonal? Would there be a fair amount of settling of the fallout before they kicked up again?

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You're right, this was around the time of the initial visit to the Colony. The "official" Santa Ana Winds are seasonal, but any time conditions result in a hot wind coming from the desert it gets called a Santa Ana.

Here's a question: Where do the Santa Anas originate from? Your description of hot dry winds sounds more like something coming out of the Mojave. Would that really effect radiation from Colorado?

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Originally Posted by HardKor

Here's a question: Where do the Santa Anas originate from? Your description of hot dry winds sounds more like something coming out of the Mojave. Would that really effect radiation from Colorado?

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Santa Anas usually happen when a weather system blocks the normal airflow from the Pacific over SoCal. The winds get diverted south, over Baja, then loop north over the Mojave Desert, before looping back into the LA Basin.

No impact on Boulder, but the Santa Anas will blow over the remains of Fort Irwin, scooping up radioactive dust in the process, and depositing it over LA, Orange County, even San Diego.

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Originally Posted by Cabbage Patch

Santa Anas usually happen when a weather system blocks the normal airflow from the Pacific over SoCal. The winds get diverted south, over Baja, then loop north over the Mojave Desert, before looping back into the LA Basin.

No impact on Boulder, but the Santa Anas will blow over the remains of Fort Irwin, scooping up radioactive dust in the process, and depositing it over LA, Orange County, even San Diego.

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Oh right, I forgot about Irwin…*facepalm*

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Originally Posted by Cabbage Patch

Santa Anas usually happen when a weather system blocks the normal airflow from the Pacific over SoCal. The winds get diverted south, over Baja, then loop north over the Mojave Desert, before looping back into the LA Basin.

No impact on Boulder, but the Santa Anas will blow over the remains of Fort Irwin, scooping up radioactive dust in the process, and depositing it over LA, Orange County, even San Diego.

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Note to myself: Whenever I wish to settle in the USA, don't choose LA or San Diego, if Fort Irwin got nuked ... (Although: real estates rates would drop like crazy ...)

I hate to say it but Cabbage Patch is correct, those could definitely pose as a problem. I say that I hate to agree because if they pose a problem with The Colony and if this was in real life, it would probably hit me first, and I'm not a fan of radiation in the zombie apocalypse.