Hot, Dry Wind Sends Mercury to Record 100

Hot, dry Santa Ana winds sent the temperature to a record-shattering 100 degrees in downtown Los Angeles on Tuesday and into the upper 80s at local beaches, where lifeguards reported crowds normally seen on a summer Sunday.

Tuesday’s Civic Center high was 30 degrees above normal and broke the old record for the date of 93 set in 1971, the National Weather Service said. It also tied the all-time high for the month set on April 23, 1910.

Lifeguards at Hermosa, Santa Monica and Zuma beaches said Tuesday’s hot sun and clear skies made it a perfect time to take a day off from work, and tens of thousands of people apparently did exactly that.

“It’s a beautiful summer day, only it’s not summer,” mused Lt. Bob Moore, spokesman for the Los Angeles County Department of Beaches and Harbors. “And for a weekday-workday, the beach crowds are pretty healthy.”

“If we didn’t have this heat, we’d have 10,000 to 20,000 people at the beach,” said Hermosa Beach lifeguard Wally Millikin. “Right now, we’re looking at crowds of 50,000 to 60,000.”

But the heavy crowds only exacerbated problems for lifeguards already hobbled by a lack of manpower and a riptide condition created by a recent storm, which raised a heavy surf that carved channels on the beach bottom. Water moves faster through these channels and gullies resulting in riptides.

“The water at this time of year is much more dangerous than summertime water . . . but we are working with far less lifeguards,” Millikin said. “We’ve got every lifeguard we can get our hands on.”

Weather forecasters said the heat will continue today and Thursday with relief expected by the weekend.

“The Santa Ana winds will taper somewhat on Wednesday, but the heat will remain at least through Thursday,” said meteorologist Rick Dittmann of WeatherData Inc., which provides forecasts for The Times. “That means temperatures in the Los Angeles Basin will remain in the 80s to near 100 degrees through Thursday.”

Even Tuesday’s minimum temperature of 64 broke a record for the highest minimum for the day, the forecaster said. The old record was 63 set in 1960. The normal low for the day is 52.

“Tonight’s low may be around 70 degrees,” Dittmann said Tuesday. “And that is especially remarkable if you’re in Kansas, where the high was 64.”

Dittmann, whose firm is based in Wichita, said the Santa Ana condition and heat wave were caused by a combination of high pressure in the upper atmosphere, which is centered in the Western United States, and surface high pressure centered over the Great Basin.

The surface high pressure allows air to flow from land to sea, as opposed to the normal direction in Los Angeles, which is from sea to land, he said. As the air moves from land to sea, it flows down the mountain slopes and, as it does so, compression warms it significantly and keeps the region dry. Relative humidity Tuesday ranged from a high of only 51% to 16%.

Strong Santa Ana, or “sundowner” winds as they are sometimes called in that region of the Southland, fanned a brush fire Monday night in the foothills near Ventura County’s Rincon Mountain that blackened 200 acres before being brought under control early Tuesday, authorities said. That fire, which was located east of Carpinteria, charred a lemon grove as well as a small portion of what is believed to be the only working banana grove in the continental United States, fire officials said.

Three-digit temperatures were recorded throughout the Southland. It hit 101 in San Gabriel, Long Beach and Monrovia and the mercury topped out at 100 in Culver City, Montebello and Ontario, the National Weather Service said. In San Diego County, the temperature soared to a near-record 90 degrees at Lindbergh Field, prompting the weather service to issue a heat advisory through Thursday. It was 98 degrees in Escondido and 100 degrees at Fallbrook and Poway.

The heat advisory warned against strenuous activities in the hot sun, where temperatures were expected to be high enough to cause sunstroke, heat cramps and dehydration, weather service officials said.