Cooler, calmer weather is helping firefighters get a handle on battling the largest wildfires burning across California and preventing new blazes from getting out of control.
Temperatures are cooling slightly, and humidity is inching upward due to a weakened high-pressure system that forecasters say will persist through Tuesday.
San Diegans, yes, your body thermostats are operating properly. The nights have been hot. Extremely hot. Record-breaking hot.
San Diego has just had what is likely to go down as the warmest August night in city history. The low after 12:01 a.m. on Thursday was 77 degrees. No other August night has been that warm, going back to 1874.
(National Weather Service forecasters did not expect the low to drop below 77 before midnight Thursday, which is the cut-off time for official daily records.)
Northwestern San Diego County got off to a smoky start Thursday after smoke from the Holy fire in Orange County drifted over the region Wednesday night. The weather pattern should clear out the smoke Thursday, but it will only add to the heat. The National Weather Service has issued an excessive heat warning, in effect until 8 p.m. Thursday, from the foothills to the coast. Highs at the beaches could reach the mid 90s, while the inland valleys could be as hot as 104. The culprit is a push of hot air from the east.
California experienced its hottest single month in 124 years of recordkeeping, according to NOAA’s monthly summary of United States climate released Wednesday. For the contiguous U.S. as a whole, it was the 11th-hottest July on record, with almost every state coming in warmer than average. The national average of 75.5 degrees Fahrenheit was 1.9 degrees above the 20th-century norm, said NOAA. In addition, several communities in California and adjacent Nevada had their all-time hottest single month.
At Scripps Pier in San Diego, the surface water reached the highest temperature in 102 years of records, 78.8 degrees. Palm Springs had its warmest July on record, with an average of 97.4 degrees. Death Valley experienced its hottest month on record, with the average temperature hitting 108.1. Park rangers said the heat was too much for some typically hardy birds that died in the broiling conditions. Across California, the nighttime brought little relief, recording the highest minimum temperature statewide of any month since 1895, rising to 64.9. California has been getting hotter for some time, but July was in a league of its own.
Temperatures will soar to the upper 80s at the coast and the 102-104 range across some inland valleys on Monday and Tuesday as San Diego County experiences its third heat wave in a month, according to the National Weather Service. The above average temperatures are expected to last until the weekend, and monsoonal moisture could return by mid-week. An excessive heat watch will be in effect for all areas but the coast from 10 a.m. on Monday to 7 p.m. on Tuesday. Monday will be the hottest day.
Droughts don’t just make a place drier. As new research shows, they also make it hotter. A team from UC Irvine that compared temperature changes across the U.S. found that temperatures rise faster in places under drought conditions than they do in places with average climates. This relationship could also raise the risk of concurrent heatwaves and wildfires, the researchers say. As global warming continues its upward climb, the phenomenon described in the journal Science Advances highlights another complex feedback loop that contributes to more extreme weather events — events that could have serious implications for human health and safety.
Surface water temperatures in August hit the highest they have ever been in at least a century, according to researchers with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego. On Wednesday, August 1, water samples pulled from the end of Scripps Pier showed a reading of 78.6 degrees Fahrenheit. Researchers said it broke an all-time record. Since 1916, scientists have been tracking water temperatures near the pier in La Jolla every single day. It’s one of the longest ongoing data sets in history. But why are the waters warm now? Researchers are not exactly sure but have theories.
San Diego County didn’t escape the extreme weather happening around the planet in July that produced massive fires above the Arctic Circle, a deadly heat wave in Japan, and a 124 degree day in Algeria believed to the highest temperature ever recorded in Africa. The county had it’s own set of remarkable temperatures that stressed both plants and people. The city of San Diego had its hottest July in a dozen years and its fifth hottest since 1874. The month was 5 degrees warmer than normal, and the 96 degrees recorded on July 6 was the third highest reading ever seen in July.
Earth’s global warming fever spiked to deadly new highs across the Northern Hemisphere this summer, and we’re feeling the results—extreme heat is now blamed for hundreds of deaths, droughts threaten food supplies, wildfires have raced through neighborhoods in the western United States, Greece and as far north as the Arctic Circle. At sea, record and near-record warm oceans have sent soggy masses of air surging landward, fueling extreme rainfall and flooding in Japan and the eastern U.S. In Europe, the Baltic Sea is so warm that potentially toxic blue-green algae is spreading across its surface.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
