At the Beach, a Hot Time Is Had by All as Mercury Soars : Weather: To the delight of vacationers, Southland temperatures reach into the 90s. Said a marine safety officer, it’s ‘better than it ever was in the summer.’ But for fire officials, it was a day of jangled nerves.

With precision timing for his vacation from Connecticut, Ralph Bershefsky donned bathing trunks, plugged into a set of headphones, grabbed a sand chair and spent the day at the beach Tuesday as Orange County temperatures soared to 90.

“We left Stratford because it was dipping into the 40s and it was cold and getting colder,” said Bershefsky, who hit summerlike weather midway through his two-week vacation.

Dry Santa Ana winds caused by high pressure over the Colorado Rockies dropped the relative humidity to 17% and boosted temperatures into the high 80s and 90s in Southern California, about 15 degrees above normal for this time of year.

Santa Ana reported a high of 90 degrees, just 3 degrees shy of the all-time record set Nov. 12, 1974. El Toro was also 90, with San Clemente 84 and Anaheim 88.

The hot, dry winds and high temperatures are expected to diminish today with temperatures dropping 5 to 10 degrees, said Marty Trexler, a meteorologist with WeatherData Inc., which provides forecasts for The Times.

Today’s high is expected to reach 83, with a low of 57 degrees, Trexler said. Temperatures on Thursday are expected to drop to the mid- to upper 70s, with low clouds and fog in the mornings.

Tuesday’s easterly, 15-m.p.h. winds with gusts to 30 m.p.h. posed a “very high” fire danger but led to no major fires, said Maria Sabol, an Orange County Fire Department spokeswoman.

She said firefighters were nervous because of the fire potential caused by the combination of a five-year drought, the windy conditions, high temperatures, and low fuel moisture and humidity.

Other than the fire threat, the day was “absolutely gorgeous,” said Steven Lashbrook, a San Clemente marine safety officer.

Lashbrook said skies were so clear Tuesday morning that San Clemente Island, which is about 70 miles from shore, was clearly visible, in addition to Santa Catalina.

“It is absolutely gorgeous. We’ve got lots of surfers down here today. It looks like a lot of people decided not to go to school today, and probably more decided not to go to work today,” Lashbrook said.

The beach high in San Clemente was 84 degrees, with nice, 2- to 3-foot breakers.

Water temperature also was the warmest on the Gold Coast at 65 degrees with little wind, said Lashbrook, who called the day “better than it ever was in the summer.”

In Huntington Beach, lifeguards reported a high of 79 degrees, but larger breakers, in the 2-to-4-foot range, for surfers and bathers.

The water temperature was a brisk 62 degrees, said Robert Thomas, Huntington Beach senior lifeguard.

Prateema Carvajal of Cerritos, who visited Seal Beach with her 2-year-old daughter, Breeze, said she came to say goodby to the Pacific Ocean.

“We’re moving to Maryland,” Carvajal said as she and her daughter played in the cool surf. “So we came to say goodby to the beach.”