L.A. simmers under a ‘dramatic’ winter heat wave
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- Record-breaking heat blanketed the Los Angeles Basin on Wednesday, with daily temperature records broken at LAX and UCLA, at 87 and 88 degrees, respectively.
- Temperatures soared roughly 20 degrees above normal for February across valleys and typically cooler coastal areas.
- Though notable, such February heat spikes are not unusual; significant cooling is expected by Friday, returning temperatures toward normal ranges.
Unseasonably warm temperatures on Wednesday set several records across the Los Angeles Basin, where highs peaked in the 80s — even across the typically cooler coast — according to the National Weather Service.
“Our temperatures today are pretty dramatic,” Rose Schoenfeld, a meteorologist with the weather service in Oxnard, said Wednesday afternoon. “That’s well into the 20-degrees-above-normal range right now.”
Highs along the coast and into the valleys are typically in the 60s and 70s this time of year, she said.
While cold-stunned iguanas fall from trees in Florida and videos circulate of frozen ‘exploding’ trees in the Northeast, Southern California is working up a sweat.
Daily temperature records were broken in at least five different spots across the region, including LAX, UCLA and Long Beach, where unofficial highs on Wednesday hit 87 or 88 degrees.
Several other areas topped out at 89 degrees — including downtown L.A., Hawthorne and Ojai — according to the weather service, not quite high enough for a daily record.
Though some temperatures have been record-breaking, Schoenfeld said it isn’t particularly unusual to see short heat spikes across Southern California in February. It would be out of the ordinary if the heat lingered for more than a few days, she said, but the forecast is showing considerable cooling by Friday.
Instead of 15 to 20 degrees above average for this time of year, temperatures over the weekend are expected to be 4 to 8 degrees above average, forecasters said.
Santa Ana winds combined with a high pressure system have driven temperatures up in the area since Tuesday and should remain elevated through Thursday.
Wednesday, however, was forecast to be the hottest day in the region.
Record-breaking Feb. 4 temperatures, according to the National Weather Service:
- LAX: 87 degrees (previous record was 84)
- UCLA: 88 degrees (previous record was 85)
- Long Beach: 88 degrees (previous record was 87)
- Burbank: 87 degrees (previous record was 86)
- Santa Barbara Airport: 83 degrees (previous record was 81)
- Santa Maria Airport: tied the previous record of 84 degrees
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