104 Sets O.C. Record, and It Will Stay Hot

Orange County baked for the second-straight day Wednesday as unusual weather conditions sent temperatures soaring into the record books. In Santa Ana, the high was 104, breaking a previous high of 84 set on April 5, 1904.

According to county historian Jim Sleeper, the 104-degree reading on Wednesday also became the highest April temperature ever recorded anywhere in Orange County. Sleeper said the county’s previous all-time high reading for any day in April was 101, recorded in Santa Ana on April 15, 1966.

Hot, dry Santa Ana winds also made for unusually high readings elsewhere in Orange County: 102 in Fullerton and San Juan Capistrano, and 101 in El Toro and San Clemente. Only Newport Beach, aided by coastal breezes, posted nearly normal temperatures for the day--a high of 81, up from a low of 56.

Ontario Reaches 109

Elsewhere in the Southland, Ontario was the nation’s hot spot with a high of 109 degrees Wednesday, and temperatures hit 103 in Long Beach and Palm Springs.

Forecasters said the heat spell is expected to linger over most of the Southland until at least the weekend, although sea breezes could bring a slight cooling to coastal Orange County today.

“It looks to be another hot day on Thursday, with near record temperatures,” said Rick Dittmann, a meteorologist with WeatherData Inc., which provides forecasts for The Times.

“Sea breezes along the coast will be somewhat cooling on Thursday, but the first real relief in the heat for inland areas will not come until Saturday or Sunday,” Dittmann said. “By Monday, there will be quite a bit of wind (in the Orange County area).”

Officials for Santa Ana Unified School District, the largest in Orange County, announced that there would be slightly shorter class days today because of the continued hot weather.

“None of our schools is totally without air conditioning, but we have 16 with partial air conditioning and 21 entirely air conditioned,” district spokeswoman Diane Thomas explained. “Fans are used in classes without air conditioning.”

Thomas also said classes at some Santa Ana high schools are being held in shady areas, and elementary school children were having “quiet recesses,” to discourage strenuous activity in the heat.

Dittmann said the onslaught of summer-like temperatures may seem an aberration but is not totally unexpected. The season for Santa Ana winds, which blow desert heat toward the coast, usually lasts from September through April, he said, and “the later in the season they occur, the hotter the temperatures you get.”

By late Wednesday, a strong high-pressure system in the upper atmosphere was stalled over the Pacific Northwest. That system, combined with a lower-level high-pressure system over the Great Basin states of Idaho, Nevada and Utah, was forcing warm air--the Santa Anas--to flow west toward a trough of lower pressure over the Pacific Ocean, Dittmann said.

Southern California Edison Co. officials said power usage in the Southland on Wednesday quickly eclipsed a record set only the day before. On Tuesday, 12,633 megawatts were used, setting a new mark for an April day. But by 4 p.m. Wednesday, usage had passed 14,282 megawatts. Edison’s all-time high is 15,987 megawatts, set on a 110-degree day in September, 1988.

Relief Sought at Beaches

“It’s all for air conditioning,” said Don Bailey, regional affairs manager for the company. “Everybody’s trying to keep cool.”

Others sought relief on Orange County beaches, under cloudless sunny skies Wednesday.

“This is the kind of day we see in mid-July, not early April,” said Lifeguard Jim Turner in Newport Beach, where about 45,000 people gathered at the shore to cool off.

Major hospitals reported no unusual activity with heat-related ailments on Wednesday. But emergency room physicians at UCI Medical Center warned of hot-weather dangers.

“The emergency room physicians say that people should stay out of the heat, especially if they are very young or elderly,” medical center spokeswoman Elaine Beno said. “People having any sort of health problems, such as heart disease or lung disease or being out of condition, should try to avoid being out in the heat. They also urged people to drink a lot of fluids during this hot period.”

In normally cool Huntington Beach, the temperature jumped to 90 degrees shortly after 10 a.m. on Wednesday,and by noon the temperature in Seal Beach was 94 degrees.

In Huntington Beach, the summer-size crowds that flocked to the beaches threatened to overwhelm the off-season marine safety staff, Lifeguard Lt. Steve Davidson said.

“With so many people coming to the beach this early, we’re trying to put out warnings because we don’t have as many lifeguards this time of year,” Davidson said. “We’re operating at a skeleton staff, and so we’re warning people to be very careful, especially since the water is colder this time of year,and it makes people tire easier.”

Orange County Fire Department officials on Wednesday expressed concern about dry brush in canyon areas and predicted another early start to the fire season.

“Red flags are not out yet because fortunately there haven’t been strong winds so far with this hot weather,” Orange County Fire Department Capt. Hank Raymond said. “We’ve been pretty fortunate so far. But it’s very dry, and anything will burn.

“We’re warning people about matches and cigarettes. It looks as if we’re not going to get any more rain (for the season), and so we face another critical year of extreme fire hazards.”

Throughout the region, Wednesday’s heat wave seemingly bullied everything in its path, from car engines to hairdos.

At the Charles Ross Hair Design School in West Los Angeles, the few customers who braved the blistering heat to keep appointments arrived with weather-induced emergencies. They came with their flips flopped, with do’s that didn’t and sideburns that did, power bobs that lost their juice and permanents well on their way to becoming temporary.

“Their hair designs are wilted,” said William Towers, an instructor at the school. “When they start to sweat, the sweat relaxes the hairdos and they collapse. . . . We can fix them up in here, but when they get outside, they’re on their own.”

Times staff writers Stephen Braun, Eric Malnic and Louis Sahagun contributed to this story.