A heat wave expected to be among the hottest of the year so far will hit Southern California on Thursday, with nights cold enough to increase the risk of heat illness, and periods of critical fire weather, forecasters said.
Temperatures will be 8 to 12 degrees above normal, and wet conditions reduce overnight cooling, said Kristan Lund, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard.
Areas in the valley should reach triple digits, while Woodland Hills reaches 105 to 106 degrees, he said. Beaches will also be warmer than normal, due in part to unseasonal sea water temperatures driven by El Niño, he said.
In downtown Los Angeles, where temperatures are forecast to reach the mid-90s, Langer’s Deli owner Norm Langer said employees will install air conditioning in the front of the store and offer cold bottled water to customers in line. “Extreme heat is part of our lives these days, and we have to adapt to it,” Langer said in a statement.
A National Weather Service heat advisory is in effect for most areas until 8 a.m. Monday.
Forecasters don’t expect the heat to break any heat records but say some areas, including Woodland Hills, Van Nuys and Palmdale, could fall a few degrees below the daily high temperature set.
The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health has issued an extreme heat warning for residents in many areas, citing both daytime temperatures and unusually warm conditions at night. Hot nights can increase the stress that heat puts on the human body by depriving people of the opportunity to recover, increasing the risk of heat-related illness.
Forecasters have also warned of the danger of rapid fire, and the Weather Service is calling for a critical fire weather watch for all of Southern California’s valley, mountain and desert areas through Monday due to hot temperatures and dry vegetation. Southern Santa Barbara County is expected to see dry, smoky sundowner air this evening through Thursday, Lund said.
“Just because we have high humidity,” he said, “wetness doesn’t mean the vegetation won’t burn.”
Conditions are being brought about by a strong line of high pressure from the east and the unusual path of the remnants of Tropical Storm Elida. The system lost its tropical storm status Monday morning as it moved into cooler waters but is still moving north in the Pacific Ocean and sending dangerous surf and strong storm surges to Southern California beaches.
Although it is not clear how much climate change is contributing to this heat, scientists have found that global warming from the burning of fossil fuels is making Western heat waves more frequent, persistent, humid and deadly.
“Evidence shows that heat waves are increasing in frequency, intensity and duration, and using sophisticated modeling, it is possible to show that those waves are caused by climate change,” said Kristie Ebi, a professor of global health at the University of Washington, on Tuesday at a press conference held by the journalist and non-profit science SciLine.
Things have reached a point, he said, “where most climatologists will tell you now that there is no heat wave that has not been made worse in some way by climate change.”
Times staff writer Rong-Gong Lin II contributed to this report
