Southland swelters as triple-digit weather continues
In case the scorching temperatures and rising humidity were causing you to wonder: No, September is not the hottest month in Southern California. That dubious distinction goes to August.
But the triple-digit warmth that continued to descend Saturday on the valleys — which, as usual, are getting the worst of the heat wave — is making Southlanders feel plenty miserable. And higher humidity levels Sunday through Tuesday will compound the agony.
Normal gradations prevail, with 80s at the beaches, 90 inland and as high as 107 in the valleys, and “it will be pretty much the same through Tuesday,” said Ryan Kittell, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard.
The National Weather Service said excessive heat warnings and heat advisories would be in effect through most of the region until or through Tuesday.
Valleys are the biggest concern, Kittell said, with relative humidity expected to rise to as high as 30% through Tuesday, from 20% on Saturday.
In Orange County, sheriff’s deputies were going door to door Saturday urging homeowners to heed a mandatory evacuation order in east Silverado Canyon, where a brush fire had charred at least 1,600 acres, officials said.
Orange County Fire Authority Capt. Mike Petro said the fire, which broke out Friday morning, was 10% contained at 1 p.m. Saturday.
More than 730 firefighting personnel, fixed-wing aircraft and six helicopters were assigned to the fire that continued to burn in a northeast direction, away from the estimated 217 residences in the Cleveland National Forest area marked by narrow, winding Silverado Canyon Road.
The brush fire is being fueled by tinder-dry vegetation and is in steep, hard-to-reach terrain.
A red-flag warning of fire danger remained in effect in the foothills and mountains of Ventura and Los Angeles counties as a prolonged heat wave continued across Southern California, the National Weather Service said.
A number of cooling shelters were open in the Los Angeles area.
Kittell said temperatures should cool by perhaps 5 degrees beginning Wednesday. Further moderation is anticipated by Thursday, when cloud cover will also increase.
Temperatures will remain above normal through the week, he said.
At Back on the Beach in Santa Monica, manager Debbie Clark said the restaurant would serve “a lot of iced tea and lemonade.” Beachgoers were in place by 9 a.m. Saturday for a day that Clark described as “warm but beautiful.”
In sweltering Sun Valley in the northeastern San Fernando Valley, droves of customers filled the parking lot of the 22-acre Theodore Payne Foundation for Wild Flowers and Native Plants, a nonprofit group that promotes the use of California natives.
Lili Singer, director of special projects and adult education, said drought-related watering restrictions and lawn-removal incentives offered by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and other agencies have led to a robust increase in business. Students in one Saturday class happily accepted the suggestion that they hose themselves off.
The extended heat wave is proving problematic even for shrubby, evergreen native plants, Singer said. After three years of little winter rain, she said, “the stuff in the ground is looking as if it’s very hot.”
Twitter: @MarthaGroves
louis.sahagun@latimes.com
Twitter: @LouisSahagun
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