{"id":619729,"date":"2026-09-09T22:06:17","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T22:06:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/619729\/"},"modified":"2026-09-09T22:06:17","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T22:06:17","slug":"oppressive-humidity-strangles-southern-california-brings-health-dangers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/619729\/","title":{"rendered":"Oppressive humidity strangles Southern California, brings health dangers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Punishingly hot temperatures coupled with drastically high humidity will peak Wednesday, making temperatures feel even more intense than previously blistering days, with real relief not expected to arrive until Friday. <\/p>\n<p>Public health officials warn that the unusually high temperatures and humidity raise the risk of heat-related illnesses, particularly among older people and those with medical conditions. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe temperatures we\u2019re going to see today are going to be extreme heat warning temperatures regardless of the humidity,\u201d said Bryan Lewis, meteorologist with the National Weather Service\u2019s Oxnard office. \u201cBut that humidity certainly adds to the discomfort and the \u2018real feel\u2019 heat,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n<p>The sizzling temperatures are brought on by a combination of a strong upper-level ridge of high pressure coming from Arizona and an offshore flow coming from the north and east. <\/p>\n<p>            <img class=\"image\" alt=\"A man hauls water on a scooter in the Fashion District in downtown Los Angeles.\"   width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1788991575_200_.jpeg\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\"\/>         <\/p>\n<p>A man hauls water on a scooter in the Fashion District in downtown Los Angeles.<\/p>\n<p>(Gary Coronado\/For The Times)<\/p>\n<p>This one-two punch will bring temperatures about 8 degrees higher than normal to areas south of Point Conception and a whopping 10 to 15 degrees higher to the north. <\/p>\n<p>As a result, the forecast calls for maximum temperatures of mid- to upper 80s at the beaches, 90s across the rest of the coast and 100 to 108 degrees for the valleys.<\/p>\n<p>Forecasters say there will be little relief for Southern Californians when the sun goes down as temperatures will remain uncomfortably warm at night. <\/p>\n<p>Experts say the heat will feel even worse due to higher-than-normal  humidity brought by the remnants of former-Tropical Storm Marie and warm temperatures coming from the ocean. <\/p>\n<p>Lewis said dew point temperatures are projected to be in the 70s for most of Los Angeles and Ventura counties.<\/p>\n<p>            <img class=\"image\" alt=\"Salvador Rivera relaxes in the shade at Echo Park.\"   width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1788991577_593_.jpeg\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\"\/>         <\/p>\n<p>Salvador Rivera relaxes in the shade at Echo Park.<\/p>\n<p>(Kayla Bartkowski\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n<p>The higher the dew point rises, the greater the amount of moisture in the air, according to<a class=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.weather.gov\/arx\/why_dewpoint_vs_humidity\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"> the National Weather Service<\/a>. Generally, a dew point of 55 or less feels comfortable, while 65 or higher can feel oppressive.<\/p>\n<p>The National Weather Service office in Oxnard, which issues forecasts for Los Angeles County, doesn\u2019t keep historic records for dew point or relative humidity, he added. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut from my recollection, we generally sit somewhere between the mid-50s to maybe the low 60s,\u201d Lewis said. \u201cEven if it\u2019s a 10- to 15-degree difference in dew point, it\u2019s pretty drastic.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Tarik Benmarhnia, a climate change epidemiologist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, said it\u2019s a misconception that there is a biological process that makes people in different parts of the country more acclimatized to some climates. Instead, he said, it\u2019s really about differences in lifestyle, housing and landscape.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s why in Miami, Florida and New Orleans, for example, this is normal heat [to those residents] and society is more organized according to this type of heat event,\u201d he said. \u201cSo that makes [those communities] more resilient.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>In California, many homes and rentals don\u2019t have air conditioning because it historically wasn\u2019t needed <a class=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/california\/story\/2026-09-09\/what-happened-to-l-a-s-perfect-mediterranean-weather-humidity-challenges-birthright\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">thanks to the area\u2019s Mediterranean climate<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>Extreme heat warnings are in <a class=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/publichealth.lacounty.gov\/phcommon\/public\/media\/mediapubdetail.cfm?unit=media&amp;ou=ph&amp;prog=media&amp;cur=cur&amp;prid=5442&amp;row=25&amp;start=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">effect until Thursday<\/a> for a majority of Los Angeles County \u2014 from the Malibu coast, to the San Fernando Valley and all the way south to the Palos Verdes Hills. <\/p>\n<p>The humidity makes this heat much more dangerous than previous heat waves, according to Los Angeles County Public health officials. <\/p>\n<p>Public health officials say all residents should limit their outdoor activities during the afternoon, seek air-conditioned spaces, and take lots of breaks. Residents are advised to check on those at high risk for heat-related illness, including people with preexisting conditions, older adults, pregnant women, children and anyone without access to air conditioning. <\/p>\n<p>Unsafe weather conditions can create an <a class=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/california\/story\/2026-09-08\/miserable-humidity-persists-in-southern-california\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">added heat stress<\/a> by forcing a person\u2019s body to adjust to maintain a stable core temperature, said Dr. David Eisenman, a professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine and UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.<\/p>\n<p>A person\u2019s body is working to maintain 98.6 degrees and if it gets hotter and more humid outside, the body has to work harder to maintain that stable temperature, he said. <\/p>\n<p>The moisture in the air prevents the body from efficiently sweating which is needed to regulate the body\u2019s temperature, Benmarhnia said.<\/p>\n<p>If the body\u2019s system isn\u2019t functioning properly, then there is a risk of dehydration, heart strain and overheating, he said. <\/p>\n<p>To aid the body in getting as close to stable temperature as possible, Eisenman said people can practice \u201cskin wetting\u201d by keeping as much bare skin continuously damp as possible.<\/p>\n<p>Use a spray bottle, for example, to mist water directly onto a person\u2019s face, neck and forearms, he said. Repeat every five  to 10 minutes to keep skin visibly wet.<\/p>\n<p>People can also soak their clothing in cold water or apply an iced or chilled damp towel to their body.<\/p>\n<p>Forecasters say temperatures should drop by 5 degrees on Thursday but the high humidity will continue to loom through the day. <\/p>\n<p>By Friday, Lewis said, the region will experience another cooling trend \u2014 with temperatures dropping another 5 degrees \u2014 but the bigger relief will be the decreasing humidity that will probably \u201cbe a lot closer to what we normally expect in terms of that amount of moisture in the air.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFriday is when we\u2019ll start feeling it, and we\u2019ll also start to kind of lose some of that really humid tropical air,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Punishingly hot temperatures coupled with drastically high humidity will peak Wednesday, making temperatures feel even more intense than&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":619730,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[74109,34543,262986,26392,262985,109246,103,397,396,1355,262984,61,60,5399,46687,58920,25034,217082,262987,10062],"class_list":["post-619729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-air","tag-body","tag-bryan-lewis","tag-degree","tag-dew-point-temperature","tag-forecaster","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare","tag-heat","tag-high-humidity","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-los-angeles-times","tag-national-weather-service","tag-old-people","tag-person","tag-public-health-official","tag-stable-core-temperature","tag-temperature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=619729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619729\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/619730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=619729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=619729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=619729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}