Nice Day If You Love the 80s

Unlike last weekend when the region was awash in rain, Southern California basked under sunny skies Friday as the temperature in downtown Los Angeles soared to 85 degrees, breaking a 103-year-old record for the date.

It was even warmer in Orange County.

The National Weather Service said Friday’s top reading in San Juan Canyon, midway between San Juan Capistrano and Lake Elsinore, was 93, apparently making it the hottest spot in the contiguous 48 states.

The Chamber of Commerce weather was in sharp contrast to the cool, dank New Year’s weekend storms a few days ago, when high temperatures hovered in the low 60s and torrential rain drenched the Rose Parade in Pasadena for the first time in more than 50 years.

Today’s weather should strike a balance between the two, according to forecasters. Skies will remain mostly clear, but high temperatures will dip back into the upper 60s and low 70s as a weak low-pressure system heads down from Northern California, the National Weather Service said.

And that’s pretty much what the weather will be like for another five days or so, with only a very slight chance of rain toward the end of next week, the forecasters said.

Friday’s downtown reading of 85 at 3:20 p.m. edged out the old Jan. 6 record of 83, set in 1903. The normal high for the date is about 68.

While such records are noteworthy, they’re not all that extraordinary. Records have been kept in Los Angeles since 1877, a total of about 128 years. Since there are generally 365 days in a year, that means that daily high-temperature records are broken an average of about three times a year.

Both Thursday and Friday were much warmer than normal, due largely to an inland high-pressure system generating winds that heated and dried out by compression as they tumbled down coastal canyons to the sea.

The result was a reversal of form, with coastal communities often warmer than those farther from the ocean. For example, the high in Laguna Beach was 83 Friday, compared with a high of 64 in the Mojave Desert city of Palmdale.

Other high temperatures Friday included 90 in Anaheim; 89 in Santa Ana; 87 in Hawthorne and San Gabriel; 86 in Chatsworth, Oxnard, Riverside and at Los Angeles International Airport; and 82 in Burbank.

Total downtown rainfall for the season, which runs from July 1 through June 30, stood at 4.85 inches Friday. The normal season’s total for the date is 4.32 inches.

Long-term forecasts call for near-normal precipitation for the next month or so.