“This summer’s weather has been somewhat of a rollercoaster,” was the lead sentence in a weather story two weeks ago! Hang on, the temperatures on the Hill have passed the rollercoaster’s dip and returned to the top again.
From record highs in July and early September to record lows in the middle of September, October has invited the record highs to return.
On Sept. 30, the daytime temperature reached 94 degrees. One day later, Oct. 1, the daytime high was 98 degrees. Both were 5 degrees higher than the previous record for those days, set four years ago, in 2020.
Three days later, on Oct. 4, it reached 89 degrees in Idyllwild, the hottest on this day in 60 years. This was the first of three consecutive days resetting high temperatures recorded in 1964.
On Saturday, Oct. 5, the Hill temperature rose to 94 degrees, another record. The previous high for Oct. 5 was 89 degrees. On Sunday, the daytime high was 92 degrees surpassing the previous record of 89 degrees for Oct 6.
During the night of Oct. 1, the temperature dropped 33 degrees to 65. That was 11 degrees higher than the previous low of 54 degrees, which occurred in 2018.
The next night, Oct. 2, it cooled to 64 degrees, which again was 11 degrees higher than the previous low set in 2012.
And on the night of Oct. 4, the temperature was only 57 degrees, the warmest nighttime for this date since the 55 degree low in 1996.
On Monday, the National Weather Service forecast dropping temperatures during this week. But cooler does not mean fall chilly yet. The forecast predicted “. . . 10 to 15 degrees above average for those areas [portions of the mountains, deserts, and inland valleys] on Wednesday.
“We will yet again be on records watch today as hot temperatures continue across inland areas. . . Monday will be the last day where some places see daily record
temperatures before a subtle cooling trend begins by Tuesday,” according to the NWS forecast.
Thursday may be warmer but expect this weekend to be cooler than the record setting days but still slightly above average, according to the NWS.
“Early October was historically hot,” said Daniel Swain, meteorologist and climate scientist at the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability at the University of California, Los Angeles, in his Oct. 1 You Tube broadcast. “Very high temperature records in California in early Oct, that is not particularly unusual. . . Seeing the heat wave is not that unusual, it the magnitude that counts as well as the breadth and duration This is another remarkable record. . . really anomalously hot temperatures.”
While the heat has been horrendous on the Hill, Phoenix residents are suffering from weeks of record highs. Since summer began, Phoenix has recorded daytime temperatures greater than 110 degrees 67 times.
Locally, Palm Springs reached 117 degrees last week, Swain commented, “. . . as hot or hotter than any place in the U.S. in recorded history.”
“It feels like Augtober,” he added. “
This heat wave peaked continued through the weekend. The NWS had issued heat advisories for the Hill on both Saturday and Sunday.
By Monday, cooler and bearable temperatures returned. There were fewer records set, too. Alex Tardy, of the NWS San Diego office, forecasts a return to higher-than-average temperatures for this coming weekend and the middle of October. Swain also agreed that heat will return after the current cool down.
The precipitation forecast through December shows the chances of a normal rainfall in Southern California are below average.
