Punishingly hot temperatures coupled with drastically high humidity Wednesday, making the weather feel even more intense than during previously blistering days, with real relief not expected to arrive until Friday.<\/p>\n
Temperature records were set across California. Santa Barbara set a record for the day with a high of 96 degrees; Oxnard, 98; Camarillo, 99; Santa Maria, 103; Long Beach and Anaheim, 107; Santa Ana, 108; and Escondido, 112. To the north, San Francisco International Airport reached a record-breaking 94; downtown Oakland, 97; and San Rafael, 104.<\/p>\n
Downtown Los Angeles hit 105 degrees, tying the record for the calendar day.<\/p>\n
And due to the extra humidity, temperatures felt 5 to 10 degrees hotter, according to the National Weather Service office in Oxnard<\/a>.<\/p>\n “This humid heatwave is no joke!” UC climate scientist Daniel Swain said in a post on X.<\/p>\n Public health officials warned that the unusually high temperatures and humidity raised the risk of heat-related illnesses, particularly among older people and those with medical conditions.<\/p>\n Wednesday’s highs were “extreme heat warning temperatures regardless of the humidity,” said Bryan Lewis, meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Oxnard office. “But that humidity certainly adds to the discomfort and the ‘real feel’ heat.”<\/p>\n 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 This one-two punch raised temperatures about 8 degrees higher than normal in areas south of Point Conception and a whopping 10 to 15 degrees higher in those to the north.<\/p>\n Read more: The dangerous allure of Sunset Cliffs: Why young people keep jumping<\/a><\/p>\n Forecasters said there would be little relief for Southern Californians when the sun went down as temperatures would remain uncomfortably warm at night.<\/p>\n Experts said the higher-than-normal humidity is brought by the remnants of former-Tropical Storm Marie and warm temperatures coming from the ocean.<\/p>\n Lewis said dew point temperatures were projected to be in the 70s for most of Los Angeles and Ventura counties.<\/p>\n The higher the dew point rises, the greater the amount of moisture in the air, according to the National Weather Service<\/a>. Generally, a dew point of 55 or less feels comfortable, while 65 or higher can feel oppressive.<\/p>\n The National Weather Service office in Oxnard, which issues forecasts for Los Angeles County, doesn’t keep historic records for dew point or relative humidity, he added.<\/p>\n “But from my recollection, we generally sit somewhere between the mid-50s to maybe the low 60s,” Lewis said. “Even if it’s a 10- to 15-degree difference in dew point, it’s pretty drastic.”<\/p>\n Tarik Benmarhnia, a climate change epidemiologist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, said it’s 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’s really about differences in lifestyle, housing and landscape.<\/p>\n “That’s 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,” he said. “So that makes [those communities] more resilient.”<\/p>\n In California, many homes and rentals don’t have air conditioning because it historically wasn’t needed thanks to the area’s Mediterranean climate<\/a>.<\/p>\n Extreme heat warnings are in 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 The humidity makes this heat much more dangerous than previous heat waves, according to Los Angeles County public health officials.<\/p>\n Read more: ‘The whole beach is gone’: Big waves, flooding bring destruction to SoCal coast. It’s a warning<\/a><\/p>\n 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 Unsafe weather conditions can create an added heat stress<\/a> by forcing a person’s 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 A person’s 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 The moisture in the air prevents the body from efficiently sweating, which is needed to regulate the body’s temperature, Benmarhnia said.<\/p>\n If the body’s system isn’t functioning properly, there is a risk of dehydration, heart strain and overheating, he said.<\/p>\n To aid the body in getting as close to stable temperature as possible, Eisenman said people can practice “skin wetting” by keeping as much bare skin continuously damp as possible.<\/p>\n Use a spray bottle, for example, to mist water directly onto a person’s face, neck and forearms, he said. Repeat every five to 10 minutes to keep skin visibly wet.<\/p>\n People can also soak their clothing in cold water or apply an iced or chilled damp towel to their body.<\/p>\n Forecasters say temperatures should drop by 5 degrees on Thursday, but the high humidity will continue to loom through the day.<\/p>\n 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” be a lot closer to what we normally expect in terms of that amount of moisture in the air.”<\/p>\n “Friday is when we’ll start feeling it, and we’ll also start to kind of lose some of that really humid tropical air,” he said.<\/p>\n Times staff writer Rong-Gong Lin II contributed to this report.<\/p>\n