Labor Day Weekend to Be Hot and Sunny

Southern California skies will remain sunny and the days hot throughout the long Labor Day weekend, the National Weather Service said Thursday--but surfing should be exceptional in most places as Hurricane Olaf churns itself away to nothingness in the Pacific.

High temperature Thursday at the Los Angeles Civic Center was 97 degrees, with relative humidity ranging from 30% to 79%, and forecasters said it should be pretty much the same for the next few days.

Humidity, however, was expected to rise.

Subtropical moisture from Olaf, downgraded to the status of a tropical depression and moving southwest into oblivion, is streaming over Northern and Central California. The weather service said a southerly flow of air around the high-pressure area now dominating the Southwest could bring a chance of thundershowers to mountain and desert areas in the southern part of the state.

That inland high-pressure system is the key to the weekend’s weather picture, meteorologists explained, with only the most minor cooling trend--fully compensated by the rise in humidity--expected until the latter part of next week.

A thin layer of marine air was expected to bring night and morning low clouds to the coast.

Olaf hammered some south-facing beaches with breakers up to 20 feet high for a while earlier in the week, but that was all over by Thursday afternoon. The weather service predicted 3-foot surf on a 12-second interval at most beaches through the early part of the weekend, with westerly afternoon winds to 18 m.p.h., water temperature from 66 to 70 degrees and air temperature 6 or 7 degrees warmer.

Labor Day yachtsmen should find the inshore waters crowded, with winds light and variable in the mornings, rising southwest to 16 knots in the afternoons from Point Conception to the Mexican border. Farther out, the wind should be northeast to 25 knots with combined seas to 8 feet, the weather service said.

Mountain resorts were expected to have afternoon temperatures in the high 80s and low 90s, with westerly winds 20 m.p.h. to 25 m.p.h. and scattered thundershowers remaining a possibility there--as in the deserts--through the weekend.

High desert temperatures were expected to range from 95 to 105 degrees; lower deserts from 102 to 110.

Generally sunny weather was predicted for most parts of Arizona, with temperatures to the low 80s in the mountains and to about 112 in the deserts, with the continuing possibility of widely scattered thunderstorms in the central and southeast parts of the state.

Las Vegas was expecting clear skies with temperatures above 110 in the afternoons.

Moisture from Olaf was expected to make the first day of San Francisco’s weekend soggy with scattered showers and the possibility of thundershowers only gradually giving way to patchy clouds and occasional fog by Saturday. Those clouds should show up again each morning for the next day or two, but skies were expected to clear by the afternoon with temperatures rising to the 70s around the bay and to the upper 90s elsewhere.

Ensenada’s weekend also should feature night and morning fog and low clouds, forecasters said, but the sun should burst through before noon with temperatures rising to the mid-80s each day.