107 S.D. Temperature Is One for the Books : City Sizzles Through 3rd Hottest Day on Record; High Winds Leave 300,000 Without Electricity

Hundreds of thousands of San Diego County residents flooded beaches searching for relief Sunday as temperatures soared above 100 for a second straight day, shattering a record for the date and tying for the third-hottest day ever recorded in the city.

The mercury reached 107 degrees at Lindberg Field, thrashing the former top mark of 95 degrees for Sept. 4, set in 1961, while other parts of the county recorded similar stifling temperatures.

National Weather Service officials said it was the hottest day in San Diego in nearly a quarter century. The all-time record of 111 degrees for the city was set in 1963, while second place is 110 in 1913. An identical 107-degree temperature was recorded in 1961.

San Diego, however, didn’t have the dubious honor of being the hottest community in the county Sunday. In North County Fallbrook registered 108 degrees as did the South Bay cities of Chula Vista, Imperial Beach and National City. The cool point in the county was Mt. Laguna, which recorded a balmy 78 degrees.

Whistling Wind

Weather officials blamed a high-pressure center over the Western United States for the heat. That weather system combined with a low-pressure center over Baja California to send hot desert winds whistling from the east toward the coastal regions. Across Southern California, the mercury soared over the 100-degree mark by mid-morning.

But authorities said some good news is in sight for folks weary of the record-busting temperatures. The high-pressure ridge is expected to weaken today, resulting in a cooling trend near the coast that should extend inland by Tuesday. The high today in San Diego is expected to be 92 degrees.

Nonetheless, a heat advisory remains in effect through the end of today along inland valleys, weather officials said. In addition, the county Air Pollution Control District said an alert might be issued this afternoon because of unhealthful air conditions.

While the heat caused considerable discomfort for many residents, high winds gave fits to San Diego Gas & Electric crews. More than 300,000 people were without power at times during the day, with individual outages spread across the county.

“We had a lot of individual problems, with wind blowing tree branches onto the lines that connect the main wires to your house,” said Dave Smith, a spokesman for the utility. “We’re opening up our seven district offices, which is unusual. We’re working at it, but we expect this to continue as long as the wind does.”

Another Record

Many residents reacted to the heat by cranking up their air conditioners, sending electricity usage to a record high for a Sunday, with 2,440 megawatts of power consumed. That mark came on the heels of a record of 2,417 megawatts set the day before. Smith said about 2,000 megawatts of power are used on a normal weekend day.

With temperatures sizzling throughout the county Sunday, residents did what comes naturally, heading to the seashore or just about any other place where they figured to find relief.

San Diego lifeguards said about 119,000 people crowded city beaches, where the temperature soared to 103 degrees by midday. Most of the folks hit the sands by 10 a.m., officials said. Beaches in North County, from Del Mar to Oceanside, reported similar large crowds.

David Darrock, a San Diego lifeguard, reported that about half the people on the beach were seeking refuge in the ocean, even though the water temperature is still a chilly 61 degrees.

“A lot of people were either in the water or sitting in their chairs in the water,” Darrock said. “It hasn’t been this hot since I can remember, and I’ve lived here all my life.”

Heat Exhaustion, Fainting

Although the the swells were packed with people, the waves were peaking at a less-than gnarly 2 feet, and lifeguards reported only 18 rescues by 5:30 p.m. Several beach-goers complained of heat exhaustion and two people actually fainted, Darrock said. Lifeguards responded by putting them in the shade and providing plenty of liquids.

Some residents, however, choose to avoid the crowds at the beaches, camping out by the air conditioner or enjoying a back-yard barbecue.

One county resident, meanwhile, decided to try to take advantage of the heat.

Guy Russo of Del Mar called The Times to say he had finally answered that perennial question, “How hot was it?”

Saying he wanted to “conduct an experiment” instead of tromping off to the beach with the rest of the horde, Russo claims he put a frying pan on his patio and cracked an egg in it. When he returned several minutes later, the egg was sizzling, sunny side up.

Elsewhere on Sunday, downtown Los Angeles reached 110 degrees Sunday to tie the hottest Civic Center temperature ever recorded.

Area hospitals reported at least seven cases of heat stroke and one child with respiratory problems related to a first-stage smog alert that was declared along Los Angeles County’s southwest coast.

Hundreds of thousands who sought refuge at the beach found massive traffic jams and 90-degree readings on the sand that could only be termed cool in a relative sense.

Others never made it there; the freeways were lined with overheated vehicles. And people who stayed home with their air conditioners helped send electricity usage to a record high for a Sunday. But even that didn’t always work. Several thousand Southern California Edison customers found themselves without power when 425 transformers were knocked out.

The only other time downtown Los Angeles temperature soared so high was Sept. 1, 1955.

The record for the day--100 degrees in 1984--was easily surpassed. The overnight low, too, was the warmest of any Sept. 4--80 degrees, as compared to 73 degrees in 1984. The normal high for this date is 84 degrees, according to the National Weather Service.

Los Angeles County lifeguards estimated that 770,000 people were at beaches from San Pedro to the Ventura County line. By 10:30 a.m., left-turn lanes off Pacific Coast Highway into beach parking lots were backed up. By 3:30 p.m., the coast road was packed with bumper-to-bumper traffic and the parking lots were full, said California Highway Patrol dispatcher Robert Nuckles.

The sand was so hot that Santa Monica Hospital treated five people for burned feet. “And we got four different calls coming in about it, too,” said an emergency room nurse.

The water was warm as well. At Malibu beaches, ocean temperatures rose from 61 degrees in the morning to 66 degrees by mid-afternoon. Times staff writers Barbara Valois, Joseph Menn, Judy Pasternak, Kimberly L. Jackson, Nieson Himmel and Esther Schrader contributed to this article.