For 42 years, Edwin Iverson and his wife, Carla, have used their house as a sort of Simi Valley weather station, recording temperatures, rainfall amounts, humidity and wind.

As the fierce Santa Anas blew through Ventura County over the past four days, they added one more way to measure Mother Nature's strength.

"It blew our strong gate right off the hinge," Carla Iverson said Tuesday.

Gusts, which the couple recorded at 65 mph on Monday night and early Tuesday, scattered ash, leaves, twigs and soot across their patio. A red flag warning remains in effect today. However, forecasters expect the winds to die down, the humidity — recorded in the single digits on Sunday and Monday — to rise, and temperatures to cool over the next few days.

"Basically, we'll see a return to the cooler onshore flow," said Stuart Seto, a weather specialist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard.

Since Saturday night, Southern California has been blasted by Santa Ana winds, caused by high pressure over the Great Basin that sent wind cascading across the Mojave and into the steep canyons of coastal California. Among the hallmarks of the fierce winds are temperatures that climb as the winds descend and push toward the coast.

"Basically, it's like when you turn a heater on in your house, it dries out everything, and that and the wind causes the explosive growth in wildfires," Seto said.

At dusk Saturday, the Santa Ana winds filled the sky with dust, casting an orange and brown hue on the horizon. Instead of the cooling night air, people in Ventura County and most of Southern California had their slumber disturbed by the roar of a furnacelike wind and the rattle of trees.

The humidity was so low, rolls of paper upon which The Star is printed dried out, ripped and caused hours-long delays Tuesday morning in getting the newspaper to customers.

At one point Sunday morning, winds were clocked at Laguna Peak near Point Mugu at 112 mph. On Monday, the same wind meter recorded gusts of more than 96 mph. Wind exceeding 75 mph is considered hurricane force.

The winds deposited ash from the fires on the Channel Islands and sent huge plumes of smoke westward over the sea that could be seen distinctly from satellites.

The winds were strong enough to twist and torque traffic signals and light pole stations, said Vicki Musgrove, Ventura's acting public works director.

City crews responded to dozens of calls for downed trees, palm fronds and power outages.

"When it gets like this, we essentially put ourselves in response-mode," Musgrove said.

In the rest of the county, windstorm damage was much the same. More than two dozen trees were blown down in Moorpark, where city crews worked around the clock to clear trees and limbs. In Simi Valley, city officials have fielded about 100 calls a day since the winds began, said Ron Fuchiwaki, public works assistant director.

The wind, ash and soot prompted health officials to issue warnings for the elderly and people with respiratory conditions to remain indoors.

Concerns about air quality Tuesday prompted teams in the Pacific View League, which includes schools in Oxnard and Camarillo, to cancel matches and games.

Teachers at Moorpark College's teaching zoo took the precaution of evacuating 120 animals. Four years ago, two of the zoo's animals died in a wildland fire, said spokeswoman Jeanne Brown.

"They learned a lot from those fires," Brown said. "Now they're going to move everything that's sensitive."

While the campus's lion, tiger, hyenas and collection of mountain lions remained behind, the college moved the more vulnerable animals, including its 500-pound Galapagos tortoise.

The wind also took out 162 power poles and 15 transformers across the region, according to Southern California Edison. Downed trees damaged homes and cars, and the hot winds damaged crops, knocking fruit to the ground and sucking moisture from row crops.

"We call that wind fall," said Terry Schaefer, who does weather forecasting for farmers. Schaefer said the winds were forecast, but even with an advanced warning farmers couldn't do much about the losses.

"If they're already scheduled to harvest, they might move that up, but there's not much else to do," Schaefer said.

Back in Simi Valley, Carla Iverson said that after a night of recording weather and watching the news of the Magic fire gobbling up brush on the other side of the Santa Susana Mountains near Newhall, her husband had to take a nap. In part, he wanted to be ready in case the fire over the hills flared up again.

"In 1970, we had a huge fire at the Newhall refinery and it finally came this way, burnt up to the house and singed all along the fence," she said.

— Star staff writers Anna Bakalis, Kevin Clerici and Jean Moore contributed to this report.