Might Cool Off a Bit Today Along Coast : Hot Weather Parboils a Couple of Records

Southern California continued to broil in record-shattering heat Wednesday, but forecasters said it might be just a tiny bit cooler today, at least along the coast.

The temperature at Los Angeles Civic Center at 1 p.m. reached the day’s high of 97 degrees--three degrees higher than the 94-degree record set in 1887--and it was the second record broken in a little more than 12 hours.

The record for the warmest night was topped just after midnight Wednesday morning, when the mercury hit 76 degrees. That was the coolest it got overnight, breaking the record for the warmest overnight low: 73 degrees, set in 1972.

Other parts of the Southland were hot, too: In Death Valley, the temperature soared to 118 degrees; Blythe had a high of 110; Barstow had 108; Woodland Hills, San Bernardino, San Gabriel and Monrovia all had 105; Riverside and Northridge had 104, and Ontario had 102 degrees.

National Weather Service meteorologists explained that it was all because of a high-pressure area in Arizona. That condition, they said, spawns clockwise winds that move mostly hot, dry air across the border from northern Mexico into the Southland.

But that air is unstable; it contains storm cells and moisture at its edges--little pockets of violence picked up over the Sea of Cortez and the Pacific Ocean. These cells can, and frequently do, become brief but potent thunderstorms that hammer isolated desert and mountain areas with torrential rain and lightning.

Meanwhile, a heat-created low-pressure area at ground level inland coaxes marine air across the coastline to produce fog and low clouds that can reach as far as the inland valleys before burning off in the early mornings.

The Weather Service said central Los Angeles should see a high in the low 90s today, with relative humidity (which ranged from 27% to 60% Wednesday) dropping back into the ‘teens during the afternoons, while afternoon temperatures at the beaches hold in the near-perfect mid-70s.

Lifeguards said nearly 700,000 people spent at least a part of Wednesday at beaches from Zuma to Newport--an unusually high turnout for a weekday.

Wednesday’s inland temperatures were hard on anyone who was forced to spend the day in a non-air-conditioned building--such as the Micheltorena Street School in Silver Lake, where more than a few elementary-aged youngsters fanned themselves furiously in classrooms as temperatures soared into the 90s.

“It’s too hot to be in school,” said Elizabeth Menchaca, who is 9. “I can’t concentrate.”

Micheltorena, which has 800 students, is one of many Los Angeles schools on the so-called year-round calendar to relieve overcrowding, and officials of the Los Angeles Unified School District said school principals are allowed to send children home early if the heat becomes too intense.

By noon, however, district officials said they had received no word of any local administrator taking such action.

Micheltorena’s main building, constructed in the 1920s, has no air conditioning and teachers had to open windows and turn off classroom lights in order to keep the temperature even marginally bearable. A central air conditioning system is being installed, administrators said, but it will not be ready until next month.

Teachers were cautioned to keep youngsters in the shade during lunch time, but many of the students preferred to play “sock ball,” a variation of baseball, in the school yard that borders on Sunset Boulevard. In one game, 5th- and 6th-grade boys ran up the score against a girls’ team, 22-3.

Southland firefighters also found the heat less than comfortable. There was no repeat of the minor epidemic of brush fires Tuesday that strained Fire Department resources and damaged several homes and other structures in the Glendale, Pasadena and La Canada Flintridge areas, but the situation remained tense and the only major blaze of the afternoon drew instant response.

Flames Out of Control

Ten Forest Service engine companies, 25 Los Angeles County companies, a helicopter, two camp crews and two engine companies from the cities of Sierra Madre and Monrovia were dispatched to battle a blaze that flamed out of control in brushland near Sawpit Dam on the boundary of the Angeles National Forest.

The blaze was first reported at 1:30 p.m., and by 8:30 p.m. U.S. Forestry Service spokeswoman Marilyn Hartley said it was fully contained after blackening, 150 acres and forcing closure of Chantry Road in northern Sierra Madre. No homes were threatened by the fire, but four firefighters were hospitalized for heat prostration.