Southland Keeps Sizzling in ‘Superheat’

In the blistering heat that descended on the Southland for a second record-shattering day Sunday, Officer Leon Reynolds discovered the coolest spot on his beat: the dark, quiet hall that houses the mineral and gem exhibit at the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History.

“The gem room is nice,” said Reynolds, who patrols Exposition Park for the county’s Safety Police. “It’s what everybody looks for--that cool 75 degrees.”

From downtown Los Angeles to Orange County to the Inland Empire, there were plenty of folks wishing for cooler climes on Sunday.

It was hot, hot, hot across the board: The mercury reached 97 degrees in downtown Los Angeles (the old record was 92, set in 1941), 100 in Burbank, and a sweltering 104 in Monrovia, the warmest spot in the county.

Borrego Springs in San Diego County, with a reading of 106, was the hottest spot in Southern California.

Sunday’s scorching temperatures capped a weekend of highly unusual weather for this time of year, according to meteorologists. On Saturday, the temperature in downtown Los Angeles reached 101 degrees, breaking a 37-year-old record. Saturday’s overnight low was 69, nine degrees higher than the record set in 1957.

“It is the earliest anyone can remember that we’ve had this type of heat,” said Jerry Steiger, a forecaster with the National Weather Service. “It was just plain hot.”

One forecaster called it “superheat.”

Hundreds of thousands sought relief from the heat at area beaches, clogging freeways and creating virtual gridlock on local streets.

In Los Angeles County, more than 500,000 people lined the shores from Marina del Rey to Topanga Canyon, according to county lifeguard Lt. Dick Heineman. That figure topped Saturday’s attendance of 395,000.

“It’s wild,” said Toby Johnson, a parking lot attendant at Venice Beach, who said somebody offered him $40 to park in his lot--four times the usual fee. “It’s like mid-August. The lot was full by about 10 a.m.”

In Santa Monica, an estimated 25,000 people jammed onto the newly reopened pier for a festive--and sometimes chaotic--Cinco de Mayo party.

The bash, which included a rock-and-roll band, began at noon and broke up about 7 p.m.

At one point, the elbow-to-elbow crowd jammed a staircase leading from the beach to the pier, bringing pedestrian traffic to a halt.

“There were more people going up than going down and the thing was so packed that some people were stuck in the middle there for five to 10 minutes,” said Scott Drummond of Van Nuys, who watched the scene from a pier restaurant. “It kept getting worse and worse. You could not go up or down. It just was stopped.”

Police, however, reported no problems.

Elsewhere in the Southland, away from the sand and surf, there were plenty of people who went about their business and simply tried to cope as best they could.

In Boyle Heights, a man sold watermelons from the back of his truck. In Rosemead, a pair of Caltrans workers picked up trash on the side of the freeway, sweat dripping down their faces from beneath their fluorescent orange hard hats. In Covina, suit-and-tie-clad car salesmen spent the afternoon inside their air-conditioned showrooms, coming out only when the occasional customer requested a test drive.

And in Long Beach, more than 4,000 runners participated in the Long Beach Marathon, which began at 7 a.m. with temperatures already in the low 80s--about 20 degrees higher than those considered ideal for such a long race.

Spectators lined the streets and sidewalks of the city’s residential neighborhoods to cheer on the runners, many of whom beat the heat by stopping at “shower stations,” where competitors literally ran under shower nozzles that had been placed along the 26.2-mile course.

Meteorologists expect the heat to let up today, with temperatures in the Los Angeles Basin dipping at least 10 to 15 degrees as a cool pocket of air that has swept into Northern California moves south.

By midweek, more normal temperatures are likely to return, with daytime highs settling into the mid-70s, and fog and low clouds returning along the coast.

According to Steve Burback of Weather Data Inc., which provides forecasts for The Times, the weekend’s unusually hot weather was caused by a pair of high-pressure ridges centered over Central California and the Great Basin in Utah. He said the high-pressure ridge over California’s midsection pulled dry air from the interior west through the deserts and into the Southland.

The result was weather so hot that on Saturday, a 100-foot-tall pine tree toppled onto a Pasadena apartment complex, leaving two residents homeless. Authorities said the heat caused moisture from the tree’s shallow root system to travel up to the top of the pine, making it top-heavy.

The heat, however, did not keep enthusiastic Cinco de Mayo celebrants away from downtown Los Angeles on Sunday afternoon, where lemonade and soft drinks were going as fast as the servers on Olvera Street could pour them.

Business was good for Maria Avalos, a sidewalk vendor who ran out of beverages much earlier than she expected.

“This heat, it’s too much,” she said. “They are gone. This morning, from 7 to 10, all the sodas go. We’re selling a lot of water now.”

Business was also good in San Dimas, where 4,000 people spent the day splashing, sliding and soaking in the cool pools of the Raging Waters theme park. It was opening weekend, and park general manager Kent Lemastres said the weather could not have been better if he had ordered it himself.

“It’s a nice crowd,” he said, “and really busy for this time of year. Normally we don’t get busy until July.”

“This is great,” said David Pardo, as his wife rubbed suntan lotion on their 7-year-old son. “There’s nothing wrong with the heat, as long as there’s water around.”

Times staff writers Steven R. Churm, Stephanie Chavez and Julie Cart contributed to this story. 2 MEN DIE AT LAKE

Two men swimming in Castaic Lake drown. A26