The Big Chill : November’s Cold Nips Some Sales, but Others Heat Up

If the current warm spell has melted memories of last month’s brisk weather, Southern California residents will soon receive a chilling reminder of November’s cold: monthly gas bills four to seven times higher than those for October, thanks to soaring usage.

From firewood to microwaveable neck warmers, last month’s cooler-than-normal temperatures and rainy conditions prompted demand for a wide variety of cold-weather products and services that usually sell later in the season. In addition, the crisp weather helped jump-start sales of holiday-related merchandise.

But the cold also forced many restaurants to abandon or limit popular outdoor dining and sent shivering amusement park-goers home early.

“By 5 p.m., people are heading to the parking lot--it’s just too cold at night,” said Bob Ochsner, spokesman for Knott’s Berry Farm in Buena Park. On the Saturday after Thanksgiving, attendance was down by about 50% because of cold and rainy weather. It was so chilly that the park’s Christmas crafts areas ran out of cocoa and coffee.

“Saturday should have been a big day, but it wasn’t because of the cold,” Ochsner said.

The long lines at espresso carts and the bursts of intense fall color attested to last month’s chilly conditions. Until the weather warmed up this week, the daily high at the Los Angeles Civic Center exceeded 70 degrees on only seven November days, according to Curtis Brack, a meteorologist at WeatherData Inc., which provides forecasts and other information to The Times.

Brack says the path of winter storms, which normally roll south out of Canada across the Rocky Mountains, has shifted. Instead, most of the storms have been moving out of the Pacific and directly across the West Coast and California.

“It’s keeping things pretty cool in Southern California,” said Brack, who predicted a return of the colder weather and possible showers by late Saturday.

The cold drove monthly residential gas consumption up 50% over November, 1993, levels, according to Southern California Gas Co. spokeswoman Vicki Cho Estrada.

“Customers certainly did turn up their heat to keep warm,” Estrada said. “The temperatures that we saw in November were more like those in January and February.”

Besides turning up the heat, Southern Californians stoked up their fireplaces, leading to a jump in firewood sales. Steve Kowalczyk, owner of Holiday Firewood in Altadena, said firewood sales were up at least 50% last month. His fleet of three trucks have been delivering cords of oak, eucalyptus and fragrant juniper all day long.

“On Thanksgiving Day, I couldn’t get out” of the office, Kowalczyk said. “I had to close, and there were still people wanting wood.”

At the Mervyn’s department store in Downey, sales of turtlenecks and thermal pajamas took off at the beginning of the month, store manager Kim Van Natta said. Then demand surged for holiday-themed socks--complete with bells--and other apparel that normally sells strongly after Thanksgiving. Customers also snapped up $11.99 neck warmers, which feature a plastic tube of gel that can be heated up in a microwave oven to keep the wearer warm.

“Our customers got in the mood early and started shopping,” Van Natta said.

The cold got residents thinking about winter vacations sooner than normal, said travel agent Kathy Traynor of Associated Travel in Monrovia. Instead of a typically slow November, “all of a sudden we have had a lot of inquiries on ski packages. Thanksgiving week we were really busy, and we have not started to slow down yet.”

At Canoga Park Heating & Air Conditioning, November was much more like January as general manager Bob Wiseman and his 25 employees worked 12-hour days and Saturdays to repair and service home furnaces. Many customers have been turned away because Wiseman’s business couldn’t handle the demand.

“Once we have the initial cold wave, people start calling,” Wiseman said. “We are obviously quite pleased with it.”

Turning Up the Heat

Colder-than-normal weather in November boosted natural gas consumption by 50% over year-ago level. Residential gas consumption by Southern California Gas Co. customers in millions of cubic feet:

1993: 1,199

1994: 1,672

Source: Southern California Gas Co.