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A Degree of Disagreement on the Heat : Weather: A firefighter sweats out a drill, but it feels like ‘paradise’ to a Florida tourist. Temperature and humidity will stay on the high side for awhile.

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

Firefighter Chris Kudelka called the first day of August “hot.” Tourist Wendy Jeffcoat said it was “cool.” And for bartender Brad Hanson, Saturday was just plain “lazy.”

Those wide-ranging descriptions seem to fit the summer of 1992, which on Saturday sent temperatures into the 80s throughout inland Orange County, brought fog to the coast, rain to Big Bear and searing, 120-degree heat to Death Valley.

Locally, highs were 71 degrees in Newport Beach, 81 in San Juan Capistrano and Dana Point, 84 in Anaheim, 85 in Santa Ana, and 88 in El Toro--the warmest spot in the county, according to WeatherData, which provides forecasts for The Times.

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Kudelka, a Costa Mesa Fire Department engineer, would have preferred that the sticky heat had come another day. By 10:30 a.m. Kudelka had already worked up a sweat as he and 50 other firefighters from five departments took part in a high-rise fire drill at the 17-story Plaza Tower near South Coast Plaza.

An hour later he had finally peeled down to a soggy T-shirt and was leaning into a remnant of a breeze.

“It’s hot,” Kudelka, 31, said. “Try dragging 100 pounds of equipment, an air tank, helmet and ax up 15 flights of stairs.”

Ten yards away, Jeffcoat, who is touring the county with 300 other interior designers, felt the heat from a Floridian’s perspective. Orange County’s Saturday was weather to die for, she said.

“This is paradise,” said Jeffcoat, a native of Plantation, a Ft. Lauderdale suburb. “I’ll move here in a second for weather like this. We have 95 degrees with 95% humidity and it doesn’t cool down at night.”

Kudelka, Jeffcoat and the rest of the county will get more of the same over the next few days, predicted weather forecasters, who have seen the summer bring unusually cool weather to the Midwest and unusually wet weather to the Northeast. The unusual hot and humid weather locally comes courtesy of moist air from the Gulf of Mexico.

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The current haze and low clouds should continue during late night and morning hours and then break up into sunny afternoons with high temperatures ranging from the low 70s along the coast to nearly 90 degrees inland, said Steve Burback, a WeatherData meteorologist. Overnight lows in Orange County are expected to stay in the 60s over the next several days, and as high as 70 in some inland areas, Burback said.

With humidity levels in the county reaching over 90% in spots by midmorning Saturday, thousands flocked to the county beaches to beat the sticky heat. Huntington Beach lifeguard Lt. Steve Davidson said they found hazy, nearly foggy conditions there. At 3 p.m. hardly any of the nearly 60,000 visitors had left.

The mild surf conditions made it a relatively easy day for lifeguards, Davidson said. “It’s basically a pretty nice day,” he said. “The water is warm--about 67 degrees--the surf is light and everyone seems to be enjoying themselves.”

So were the half a dozen relaxed patrons at the Stag Bar in Newport Beach’s historic McFadden Square, where despite the 10 ceiling fans, it was hot and muggy.

Bartender Hanson was not complaining.

“Last year we didn’t even have a summer,” said Hanson, who is also the manager of the Stag, home of the city’s longest bar (70 feet). “So I’ll take humidity any day.”

As a source of steamy, monsoon-style moisture, the Gulf is replacing July’s storms and hurricanes that were positioned in the Pacific Ocean off the Baja peninsula.

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“Those storms tend to stay in the south at this time of year,” said Burback. “But every once in awhile they will drift northeast and hit the Southern California coast.”

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