Typically, El Norte wind events, like the one building today and peaking Friday, are triggered by high pressure moving into the Great Basin 4-Corners region.
Looking at this image, you can see that the high pressure today is actually pretty far to the north, and the northerly wind coming from that high pressure towards the Sea of Cortez is very weak. So why the strong El Norte winds. Looking at the bottom of the image notice the huge low-pressure area way south of Cabo and how it is accelerating the winds. Typically, there is a much weaker low-pressure in that area, and we need strong high-pressure in the 4-Corners region to create strong El Norte winds. But who is complaining!