Beach Crowd Increases in Tandem With Temperatures

Unusually warm temperatures drew the flocks back to the beaches Thursday, surprising lifeguards who had expected smaller crowds.

“After Labor Day you usually expect it to be pretty quiet, but with the heat and good surf conditions, we had a pretty good share of business today,” Huntington Beach City Lifeguard Brian Judd said.

High temperatures for the day reached an unusual and uncomfortable 94 degrees in both Irvine and Anaheim. By comparison, Newport Beach was a tepid 74 degrees at its hottest, and Dana Point’s mercury reached the 80-degree mark.

Orange County was about 10 degrees warmer than normal for early September, said Steve Burback, meteorologist for Weather Data, which provides The Times with weather information. However, temperatures were nowhere near records for the area, he said.

For the weekend, the weather is expected to be more of the same, with temperatures hovering in the 90s in the inland areas and in the 70s along the coast, Burback said.

From Seal Beach to Laguna Beach, lifeguards reported bigger crowds Thursday than they had anticipated for midweek.

“There were definitely larger crowds than we expected for the day after school started--so much so we had to bring in additional staff,” said Jeff Harman, lifeguard supervisor for San Clemente.

“We had about 10 good rescues today,” he said. “It was hot as can be out here today. . . . It got up to 79 degrees.

“You could tell school got out around 2 o’clock because we had an influx of kids coming down here.”

The reason for the summer redux, Burback said, is that the low cloud cover that lingers over the area from June to August begins to dissipate as fall sets in. That, combined with warmer, drier winds blowing in from the inland areas Thursday, Burback said, pushed the mercury up.

“Normally we have cooler, moist air coming in from the coast,” he said. “That, and the cloud cover, usually keeps the temperatures pretty normal, like in the 70s and 80s, not in the 90s like (Thursday).”

Times staff reporter Matt Lait contributed to this report.