Temperatures Drop, Humidity Hangs On

Temperatures may have inched back down the thermometer by Tuesday, but lingering humidity kept the heat on around most of the county.

Inland temperatures that had reached to 100 during the weekend dropped to the mid-90s Tuesday, while temperatures at beaches hovered near the pleasant mid-70s.

Tuesday’s high in Orange County was the 94 degrees recorded in Mission Viejo. Elsewhere, highs were 84 degrees in Santa Ana; 82 in San Juan Capistrano; 81 in El Toro, and 73 in Newport Beach.

The humidity was caused by tropical air streaming in from the Gulf of Mexico over the southwestern states and up to Nevada, according to Mark McKinley, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Los Angeles. The moist air is causing scattered thundershowers over Southern California mountains and deserts, and raising humidity levels along coastal areas, he said.

Heat-Related Problems

“Humidity makes the heat feel worse,” McKinley said.

Several patients were admitted to UCI Medical Center in Orange Tuesday for heat and humidity-related health problems. Many were people suffering from emphysema and asthma, hospital officials said.

One man in his mid-20s collapsed from heat exhaustion while working in an attic, according to Dr. Gregg Pane.

“When you have high temperatures and humidity, they act together to make things worse,” Pane said. “Emphasize that it can happen to anyone.”

Groups at greatest risk include infants, elderly people with cardiovascular disease and people on some anti-depressant and anti-nausea prescription medicines, Pane said.

With temperatures dropping Tuesday, the Orange County Fire Department said it was lowering its fire hazard alert level from medium to low.

Like the temperatures, the crowd count was also down at the beaches. “It was a gorgeous day,” Laguna Beach lifeguard Lt. Mike Dwinell said. “But we didn’t have many people.”

In Newport Beach, lifeguards reported about 65,000 beachgoers, about average for a summer weekday, they said. And even with the OP Pro Surfing Championship under way, only about 33,000 people were on the sands at Huntington Beach, lifeguards said, down from about 75,000 on Monday.