A hot day at the beaches as temperature records melt

The weather Sunday felt more like July than November, as cities across Southern California set record-high temperatures and large crowds flocked to the beaches.

Woodland Hills hit 96 degrees, topping last year’s record of 92 on the same date. Downtown Los Angeles reached 92 degrees, tying a record set in 1895. The average high for the date downtown is 72.

Westwood hit 90 degrees, surpassing the old record of 88 set in 1954. Burbank also reached 90, besting its former record of 89 in 1989. San Gabriel recorded 93 degrees, breaking its previous record of 92 from 1989.

Long Beach tied its old record of 90 degrees, also set in 1989.

But temperatures will cool by midweek, with highs in the 70s by Thanksgiving.

Los Angeles County had three times as many seasonal lifeguards as usual Sunday working a stretch from Marina del Rey to Topanga Beach, said Terry Hearst, a captain with the county lifeguard service in Santa Monica.

“It was certainly an abnormal crowd for a November day,” Hearst said. “It was probably equivalent to a summer weekday down here.”

Jamie Meier, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard, attributed the unseasonably high temperatures Sunday to a strong offshore flow, coupled with a strong ridge of high pressure over the area.

Meier predicted a “dramatic cool-down” by Tuesday, with highs in the mid-70s in the valleys and mid-60s at the beaches.

It’s hard to say whether the 90s are history for the rest of the year. The Climate Prediction Center, a branch of the weather service that forecasts short-term climate variability, anticipates an average winter.

“We thought it was the last of it last time it happened a couple weeks ago,” Meier said. “If we could tell you what temperature it would be on Feb. 1, I’d be out of a job.”

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charles.ornstein@latimes.com