Last Updated on 07/09/2024 by Arun jain
SAN DIEGO – A scorching heat wave across the West produced record temperatures Friday and is expected to last into the weekend in some regions.
According to the National Weather Service in Oxnard, California, Hollywood Burbank Airport in the Los Angeles area matched its all-time high temperature with a reading of 114, setting its own record high of 99 on the date.
Downtown Los Angeles tied its record high for the date at 111, it said. Santa Ana (113) and Newport Beach (95) in Orange County and Ramona (114) in San Diego County set new records for the date, weather service numbers show.
The weather service office in Phoenix said 93-degree morning low Sky Harbor International Airport had the hottest day on record for any September day on the books.
In Yuma, Arizona, where the record date is 1878, the desert town recorded a high of 109 on Friday, besting its last streak of consecutive days with a high above 100 degrees, reaching 100 days of triple-digit highs this summer. The Phoenix office said.
Death Valley reached 119 on Friday, but that’s not a record, according to the weather service. In the Pacific Northwest, several inland locations from Spokane, Washington, to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, recorded temperatures in the 90s, according to the weather service’s Spokane office.
Forecasters initially had heat warnings associated with the wave lasting through Friday, but some forecasters have extended it through the weekend and into Monday.
NBC News forecasters say 50 million people will be covered by heat warnings by the end of the week. This National Weather Service warnings A high level of extreme heat warning, when conditions pose a significant risk to life, and an extreme heat watch, when temperatures will rise but the timing is unclear.
Extreme heat warnings cover an area from Long Beach, Calif., to roughly San Luis Obispo County, according to weather service information and maps. Extreme 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.
Those warnings for the eastern part of Oregon were expected to end at 10 p.m. Friday.
The California Independent System Operator, which manages California’s electricity grid, issued “restricted maintenance operations” requests to utilities asking them to avoid scheduled maintenance Wednesday through Friday from noon to 10 p.m.
The requests try to ensure that no utility provider is off the grid during the high demand that comes with heat waves. Otherwise, demand remained below capacity on Friday, and voluntary conservation efforts under a program known as FlexAlert were not expected.
“The grid is stable and no flex alerts are planned,” Cal-ISO spokeswoman Vonette Fontaine said by email.
A high pressure system in the desert southwest is warming the air and blocking the cooling influence of the Pacific across the west. The weather service’s coast-to-coast forecast says the system will remain through Saturday but will begin to move eastward Sunday.
“Temperatures should drop in the west Sunday into Monday as the ridge turns eastward over the central United States, and scattered light showers and storms will be possible as weak upper-level waves move across the region,” he said in a forecast discussion Friday. .
Storms produced by a lingering storm front are expected to continue to drench Gulf Coast states this weekend, with 5 million people from east Texas to northern Florida covered by flood warnings, NBC News forecasters said.
Meanwhile, forecasters in parts of Southern California said the heat will continue into Monday and possibly longer, despite a small storm moving into the Pacific Northwest.
A high pressure system is pushing back the normally cold influence of the ocean as it produces winds that travel from east to west and warm the air as it travels along the coast from higher elevations, including mountains.
And the scant rain that could bring some relief to parts of the West is too far north for Southern California to do so, federal forecasters said.
“Offshore flow appears to be lingering in this area,” said Weather Service meteorologist Joe Sirard. “We continue to have warm weather in this area.”
The light at the end of the tunnel for Southern California is a possible return of onshore winds, with the cold Pacific blowing over land and cooling it, come Wednesday, Sirard said.
“By then we may be slightly below normal,” he said.
The US Environmental Protection Agency says that heat waves have become more frequent, longer and more intense in recent years, and that these elements constitute “indicators” of climate change, or global warming.
The European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service said The summer of 2024 was the hottest On record for the Northern Hemisphere, surpassing the last warmest summer — last year.
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