SAN DIEGO – Scorching heat in the West brought record temperatures Friday and is expected to continue into the weekend in some regions.
Hollywood Burbank Airport in the Los Angeles area reached its highest temperature ever at 114 degrees, according to the National Weather Service in Oxnard, California. The airport itself had set its own record for the year at 99 degrees.
Downtown Los Angeles hit its record high for the date at 111, it said. Santa Ana (113) and Newport Beach (95) in Orange County, as well as Ramona (114) in San Diego County, set new records for the date, weather service figures show.
According to the Phoenix Weather Service, the morning low temperature of 34 degrees Celsius recorded at Sky Harbor International Airport was the highest temperature ever recorded on a September day.
In Yuma, Arizona, where weather records date back to 1878, the desert city recorded a high of 109 degrees Celsius on Friday, breaking the last streak of consecutive days with temperatures above 100 degrees Celsius. This summer has seen 100 days with triple-digit highs, according to the Phoenix office.
Death Valley reached 47 degrees on Friday, but that was not a record, according to the weather service. In the Pacific Northwest, temperatures in the 30s were recorded in several inland locations, from Spokane, Washington, to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, according to the weather service’s Spokane office.
Meteorologists had initially issued a heat warning for the wave that would last until Friday, but some have extended those warnings to the weekend and even Monday.
According to NBC News meteorologists, 50 million people will be under heat warnings throughout the weekend. The National Weather Service’s alerts include a highest-level heat warning when conditions pose a significant threat to life and a heat advisory when temperatures rise but the timing is unclear.
Heat warnings are in effect for an area from Long Beach, California, almost to San Luis Obispo County, according to weather service data and maps. Heat warnings for much of the rest of Southern California, including San Diego, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, were set to expire at 8 p.m.
For the eastern half of Oregon, such warnings were scheduled to expire at 10 p.m. Friday.
The California Independent System Operator, which manages California’s power grid, has ordered utilities to operate under “limited maintenance” and asked them to avoid scheduled maintenance from noon to 10 p.m. Wednesday through Friday.
The calls are designed to ensure no utility is disconnected from the grid during the high demand that a heat wave brings. Otherwise, demand remained below capacity on Friday and voluntary conservation efforts under a program called FlexAlert were not expected.
“The network is stable and no FlexAlerts are planned,” Cal-ISO spokeswoman Vonette Fontaine said by email.
A high pressure system over the desert southwest is warming the air and blocking the cool influence of the Pacific across the West. According to the weather service’s coast-to-coast forecast, the system will stay through Saturday but move east on Sunday.
“Temperatures should drop in the West Sunday into Monday as the ridge moves eastward across the central United States. Isolated light showers and storms will be possible as a weak upper-atmosphere wave moves across the region,” said a forecast discussion on Friday.
Thunderstorms caused by a persistent storm front are expected to continue drenching states along the Gulf Coast this weekend, and a flood warning is in effect for 5 million people between East Texas and North Florida, NBC News meteorologists reported.
Meanwhile, meteorologists in parts of Southern California predicted the heat would continue through Monday and possibly longer, despite a smaller storm front moving across the Pacific Northwest.
The high pressure system contends with the normally cooling influence of the ocean as it creates winds that blow from east to west, warming the air as it moves from higher elevations, including the mountains, toward the coast.
And a smaller rain front that could provide some relief in parts of the West is too far north to provide relief in Southern California, according to state meteorologists.
“The offshore flow appears to be lingering in this area,” said meteorologist Joe Sirard of the weather service. “The hot weather over this area continues.”
The light at the end of the tunnel for Southern California is the possible return of inland winds as the cold Pacific blows onto land and cools it on Wednesday, Sirard said.
“Temperatures could be slightly below normal by then,” he said.
According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, heat waves have become more frequent, longer and more intense in recent years. These elements are an “indicator” of climate change or global warming.
According to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, the summer of 2024 was the hottest summer on record in the Northern Hemisphere, surpassing the hottest summer of last year.
