The National Weather Service expects the Santa Clarita  Valley to sidestep the fire danger it’s predicting for certain mountain and coastal regions of Southern California tonight through Monday afternoon.

The agency said Sunday morning that although “locally breezy conditions” with gusts of 25 to 35 mph and a “short period of single-digit humidities could bring brief critical fire weather conditions in the Santa Clarita Valley and eastern Ventura County valleys, it no longer appears that there will be a sufficiently long duration of critical red flag conditions, allowing the cancellation of the fire weather watch for these areas.”

Gusty winds are still expected to bring a heightened fire danger to the coastal mountains of Los Angeles and Ventura counties – although not the local Santa Monica range.

“An upper level ridge of high pressure with offshore flow near the surface will bring locally breeze offshore winds along with very warm and dry conditions through Monday,” the NWS said. “The peak of the offshore flow event is expected to be tonight through early Monday afternoon when fire danger will be highest. During this time, the strongest winds will be focused across the mountains of Los Angeles and Ventura counties where gusts in the 30 to 40 mph range will be common. These winds, in combination with humidities around 10 percent or less, will bring a period of critical fire weather conditions to the mountains, where red flag warnings will be in effect.”

The red flag warning remains in effect from 7 p.m. tonight through 4 p.m. Monday for coastal regions from San Luis Obispo County south to downtown Los Angeles.