Hot, Freakish Weather Starts Long Weekend

Freakish weather--including hot winds that toppled trees and power lines, temperatures of 103 degrees and sudden downpours--marked the first day of the Labor Day weekend in Orange County on Saturday.

While some areas of the county remained calm, a sudden storm swept into northern Orange County about 4 p.m., knocking down trees and causing scattered power outages that left 10,000 in the county without electricity.

Allan White, a battalion chief with the Westminster Fire Department, saw a large, dark cloud swirling into the city from the southeast.

“I felt a real hot wind like from a blast furnace,” White said. “It burned your skin.”

The cloud then “started circling like a mini-cyclone,” White said, before touching down near a house in the 7900 block of 12th Street. It knocked down several trees, including one that was more than 100 feet tall. There were no injuries and only minimal damage to the roofs of the homes, apart from a loss of power.

“This hot wind was something really unusual,” White said, something I’ve never experienced before in this part of the country,” lasting about 20 minutes.

A few minutes later, another tree blew down in Garden Grove, near Magnolia Street and Chapman Avenue, hitting a 12,000-volt overhead power line, said Roger Faubel, a spokesman for Southern California Edison. Around the county, other outages, some caused by the extremely high temperatures and increased use of air conditioning, brought the number of households without power to about 10,000, Faubel said, and most had power restored by Saturday night.

The sudden storm, according to Jack DeRosa, a meteorologist with WeatherData which provides forecasts for The Times, may have been something like the Midwestern phenomenon known as a “Dust Devil,” which he said “normally occurs when there is quite a bit of heating and the atmosphere gets unstable enough. It creates a really small, cyclonic movement of the air close to the ground.”

Dark skies and scattered showers were also reported around the county as far south as Irvine.

Meteorologists said little relief from the heat could be expected today or during the rest of the three-day weekend that signals the conclusion of the summer vacation season. Thunderstorms and flash floods were also being predicted for desert and mountain areas.

Temperatures reached 103 in San Juan Capistrano and 102 in El Toro. In Santa Ana, it was 100, in Newport Beach 77, according to WeatherData. The highest temperature recorded in Orange County for this date was 113 in 1955. The humidity, WeatherData said, was 30% to 40%, which, combined with the high temperatures, added significantly to the discomfort.

The Los Angeles Civic Center high of 103 equaled a record also set in 1955. Temperatures reached 109 in Ontario, 111 in San Bernardino, 108 in Burbank, 110 in Northridge and 109 in Pasadena and San Gabriel, according to the National Weather Service.

Some Orange County residents fled to the beaches Saturday to seek some relief from the heat. Newport Beach had the largest crowd of the day with 110,000 covering the sand.

“It’s been kind of a strange day,” said Gordon Reed, head lifeguard at Newport Beach. “We’ve had high clouds coming in from the southeast and some awful, hazy light fog coming in. The water’s kind of cool--a big contrast to the weather--the water’s only 61 to 64 (degrees) out here.”

About 35,000 people hit Huntington Beach, a small crowd, according to lifeguards.

“It was real slow and the crowd was real well-behaved,” lifeguard Claude Panis said. “We did have a hang glider land on the beach--that was about the biggest thrill of the day.”

There was little surf in Laguna Beach, which probably kept some beachgoers away Saturday, lifeguard Matthew Wesner said. However, about 20,000 enjoyed a “real nice quiet day.”

Forecasters don’t see any relief from the heat today. However, there is a slight chance of thunderstorms today and a higher chance of them on Monday because of a tropical storm on the southern Mexico and Arizona border, which is working its way West.

“The storm could provide a little relief from the heat, but it’s got a bad side to it,” said Dave Beusterien, also with WeatherData. “Along with the increase in heat, there is an increase in humidity. And although the temperatures will decrease, the humidity will increase, which just about negates any temperature decrease.