Forecasters expect California’s heat wave to smash records this week, even outstripping the hottest day ever reported in March nationwide.
The Coachella Valley and Imperial Valley in Southern California will likely feel the most heat, with highs reaching well above 100 degrees, according to the National Weather Service. The community of Thermal could reach 111 degrees on Thursday.
That number could make history. By comparison, Mecca in the Coachella Valley holds the state record for the hottest March day, at 107 degrees in 2004, according to the Western Regional Climate Center. In the U.S., that record is a tie between two places in Texas: Rio Grande City hit 108 in 1954, as did Falcon Dam in 2020.
Experts told SFGATE this early heat wave could be especially dangerous.
“This first heat wave of the season is much earlier than normal,” Rose Schoenfeld, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Los Angeles, told SFGATE. “Science shows that your body’s adaptation to heat is a big factor in whether or not you see health impacts. We’re not adjusted to heat right now in the area, so what normally would be just a regular day could be much more significant.”
FILE: The sun rises over Los Angeles. (johnemac72/Getty Images)
Multiple areas of California have heat advisories – including the Bay Area’s first ever in March – and warnings through the week. Meteorologists said the heat could topple a variety of records, including ones for same-day temperatures, March highs and first 100-degree days.
“Virtually every site that we maintain a long record for has a risk of having their record broken,” Joe Merchant, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service, told SFGATE about the greater San Francisco Bay Area. “There will be a slew of daily records broken and probably a lot of March records broken, too.”
Much of the Bay Area is forecast to have temperatures up to 30 degrees warmer than normal this week. Pinnacles National Park, which the weather service’s San Francisco office monitors, could clock its earliest 100-degree day ever, according to Merchant. The record in the park is April 8, 1989.
In the southern part of the state, the story was similar. “Daily records will be broken mostly Tuesday through Friday across all four counties that we cover,” Schoenfeld said, referring to Los Angeles County, San Luis Obispo County, Ventura County and Santa Barbara County.
Meanwhile, downtown Los Angeles could surpass its March high of 99 degrees from 1879 this week, while Burbank could break its record 98 degrees from 1988, according to Schoenfeld. San Gabriel Valley and San Fernando Valley are the most likely areas to hit 100 degrees this week, which normally doesn’t happen in the region until around June.
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This article originally published at California on track for the hottest March day ever in the U.S..