A heat wave that brought record-breaking summer-like heat to Southern California in the middle of March is not a predictor of even worse summer temperatures, forecasters said.<\/p>\n
Despite the intense heat of the last few days is not yet enough to bring drought to a region that was soaked by winter rain, but may make for a dangerous, fuel-heavy fire season, forecasters said Friday.<\/p>\n
\u201cEarly season temperature spike like we saw doesn\u2019t actually predict what we would see this summer,\u201d NWS meteorologist David Gomberg said.<\/p>\n
The record-breaking temps this week are a result of high-pressure systems, Santa Ana type conditions and a higher sun angle, which combined, created the \u201cperfect setup for 90 to 100 degree temperatures,\u201d Gomberg said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s not a specific reason that we\u2019re just seeing a very anomalous heat wave this time of year and this isn\u2019t really much of a sign of what we can expect during this summer, although because of anomalous sea surface temperatures on all of our coasts, if the sea surface anomalies remain above average then it is pretty likely that we get up in above average summer\u2013 at least closer to the coast,\u201d NWS meteorologist Sebastian Westerink said.<\/p>\n
The water year was off to a raging start with a series of rainstorms bringing much of Southern California to average or above average rain levels for the year in a period of just a few months.<\/p>\n
The unseasonal heat this past week alone isn\u2019t enough to push the state into drought conditions, that would require much longer periods of intense heat and a sustained period without rain. At this point in the year, it is unknown if Southern California will remain watered or moved towards drought.<\/p>\n
The \u201codds are tilted\u201d towards an El Ni\u00f1o year, according to the NWS\u2019 longer term climate prediction tools. This pattern is characterized by wetter weather in Southern California, but is not a guarantee, forecasters said.<\/p>\n
As spring comes, in April and May, ocean influence becomes more prevalent, with stronger onshore flows that bring the \u201cMay gray\u201d, cooler weather, making heat waves in those months less likely, Gomberg said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf this trend were to continue for the rest of the rain season, into the next season, that\u2019s when we start worrying about about actual drought\u2026 the more serious drought, it would take at least another year of anomalously dry conditions to put us back into a true drought condition,\u201d Westerink said.<\/p>\n
What is a worry, Westerink said, is the impact of a wet, rainy winter followed by a period of very high temperatures\u2013 the recipe for vegetation to grow at an increased rate, vegetation that will then dry out.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that the main concern will probably end up being the fire threat because we did receive a lot of rain, especially early in the rain season, which means that there\u2019s a lot of the vegetation growth\u2026 but because of the heat, a lot of it\u2019s going to dry out pretty quickly, especially the finer fuels,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Some grasses have begun to dry out, and more vegetation will follow suit, at a faster rate when the weather is hotter.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we were thinking is, oh the recent rains that we had over winter, that might offset the fire season by a little while, but now, if we don\u2019t get some more rain, things could start browning out more quickly than we were hoping,\u201d Gomberg said.<\/p>\n
On Friday, a grass fire broke out in San Luis Obispo County, the first of the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt gives you the kind of indication that that potential is starting to get realized in some of those interior sections. They had about a 50 to 100 acre grass fire out there,\u201d Gomberg said.<\/p>\n
A small reprieve from the recent heat is inbound as temperatures are expected to drop a few degrees Saturday and Sunday. A heat spike is expected midway through next week when temperatures will be 15-25 degrees above normal, but this patch will not be as hot nor as long as what the region endured in recent days, Westerink said.<\/p>\n
A heat advisory may come into place next week, forecasters said.<\/p>\n
Coastal areas in Los Angeles will see the marine layer creep back in, making for much milder conditions, Gomberg said. Areas more inland that have been experiencing 90 to 100 degree temps will see a drop to the 80 to 90 degree range, which should feel noticeably cooler, he said.<\/p>\n
On Friday, March 20, daily temperature records were broken in Downtown Los Angeles, where a temperature of 96 degrees was recorded, breaking a record of 93 from 1997. A 2004 record of 94 was broken in Woodland Hills, where a temperature of 100 degrees was recorded. At the Long Beach Airport, temperatures reached 91, just edging out a 1997 record of 90 degrees.<\/p>\n
This heat wave brought the earliest 100 degree temperatures ever recorded in the San Fernando Valley\u2019s Woodland Hills, according to the National Weather Service.<\/p>\n
Across the four days of scorching temperatures, 40 daily high temperature records were broken, the NWS said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A heat wave that brought record-breaking summer-like heat to Southern California in the middle of March is not…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":535902,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,69156,451,48548,3,207528,4752,85653,452,453,2986],"class_list":["post-535901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-headlines","tag-inland-empire","tag-news","tag-oc-beaches","tag-public-safety","tag-san-fernando-valley","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-weather"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=535901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535901\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/535902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}