California suffered through its hottest July on record, while August has pushed sea-surface temperatures off the San Diego coast to all-time highs.
Are these punishing summer heat waves the consequences of global warming or the result of familiar weather patterns?
Water temperature readings off the coast of San Diego on August 9 are believed to be the highest ever measured in California waters.
Two buoys off the coast logged a sea-surface temperature of 81.3 degrees Fahrenheit, surpassing an earlier high temperature set on August 2. The two buoys, the Torrey Pines buoy, located 7.3 miles from the coast, and the Scripps Neashore buoy, located about a mile offshore, are managed by Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California
Two buoys off the coast of San Diego last week recorded what researchers believe could be the highest temperature ever measured in California waters.
A sea-surface temperature of 81.3 degrees was logged Thursday by both the Torrey Pines buoy (7.3 miles offshore) and the neighboring Scripps Nearshore buoy (.7 miles from the coast). The buoys are two of 25 managed by Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California.
Sea-surface temperatures along the coast of Southern California have grown unusually warm in the last month, contributing to record-breaking temperatures and uncomfortable humidity in San Diego.
The ocean temperatures warmed from a hot weather pattern in place across California this summer, which vaulted the state to its warmest July on record. The hotter-than-average conditions are due to a persistent area of high pressure in the upper atmosphere.
The daytime high in San Diego hit 83 degrees on Monday, the 17th straight day that the high was 80 or above, says the National Weather Service says.
And the same is likely to happen on Tuesday.
A high pressure system and unusually warm ocean temperatures are fueling the hot stretch, and there’s little relief in sight. Seasonal monsoonal moisture is expected to return on Wednesday and last until Friday. Thunderstorms are possible in the mountains.
The fires raging across California are causing devastation on an unprecedented scale. Currently, 14,000 firefighters are battling 16 major fires, which have destroyed more than 2,000 homes and killed at least 10 people.
At Scripps Pier in San Diego, the surface water reached the highest temperature in 102 years of records, 78.8 degrees. Palm Springs had its warmest July on record, with an average of 97.4 degrees. Death Valley experienced its hottest month on record, with the average temperature hitting 108.1. Park rangers said the heat was too much for some typically hardy birds that died in the broiling conditions. Across California, the nighttime brought little relief, recording the highest minimum temperature statewide of any month since 1895, rising to 64.9. California has been getting hotter for some time, but July was in a league of its own.
California’s natural beauty is facing tremendous challenges — a climate that is changing and a population that is growing fast and constantly demanding the most precious resource: water. “California needs a new tool to manage water for the next drought,” said Jim Watson, Sites Project Authority general manager. One of those new tools is the Sites Reservoir Project, which was just awarded $816 million in voter-approved state funding. Located about 90 miles north of Sacramento, the site of the new reservoir is just remote rangeland now, but when it’s completed in 12 years, it will store nearly twice as much water as Folsom Lake — enough to serve 4 million Californians each year.
Sea surface temperatures in Southern California — especially spots in San Diego like Solana Beach — have been unusually warm for weeks. The National Weather Service issued a computer graphic late Monday that shows where the hottest temperatures are being recorded (the areas in red.) “Water temperatures from lifeguards are 72 to 78F and this is shown in satellite imagery depicting much above normal readings (anomaly) in the California Bight,” the weather service said on Facebook.
When dust storms began rising off the dry bed of Owens Lake, authorities in the Eastern Sierra blamed Los Angeles’ thirst. The city had, after all, drained the lake in the 1920s to serve its faucets. Now, as dust kicks up from Mono Lake, authorities in the Eastern Sierra are once again blaming that water-craving metropolis about 350 miles to the south.
