San Diego County is in the grips of a record-setting heat wave as an unseasonal extended hot spell blanketed Southern California.
"Daily record highs will be broken in several locations," said the National Weather Service. "A return of onshore flow will bring some cooling to the coastal basin over the weekend, but temps will remain above average nonetheless."
Around the Ocean Beach Pier on Friday, locals lounged on the sand and surfed in the waves.
“I love it," surfer Haakon Hoyer-Nielsen said. "This is exactly what I came down here for. To get to have days like this in the middle of winter — I think that's why we all live here.”
He was making the most of the unseasonably hot weather. Hoyer-Nielsen used to live in Northern California, where he said it's much colder at this time of year.
He said he plans to manage this unexpected heatwave in the ocean.
“I’ll probably get in the water as much as I can, get to the beach," he said. "I think that's what everyone else will be doing, but I'll join them.”
A strengthening high-pressure atmospheric system combined with winds out of the east will bring widespread record heat until the end of the week. High temperatures will be 20 to 25 degrees above average west of the mountains through Friday, according to the National Weather Service.
Maximum thermometer readings through Friday are likely to reach the low to mid-80s near the coast and the 90s across the inland valleys, tying or breaking records, the NWS reported. The East County highlands and desert locales will get less dramatic warming, up to about five degrees, meteorologists said.
An NWS heat advisory for coastal and valley communities will be in effect until at least 8 p.m. Friday. The weekend will be less toasty but still unusually warm for this time of year, according to the NWS.
Next week, even hotter conditions are expected to arrive.
It's a heatwave that's very unusual for this time of year, said San Diego Weather Echo meteorologist Alex Tardy.
“We could be talking about all time high temperatures,” he said. “Not just a daily record, but an all time high temperature from the desert to the coast for the month of March, if these temperatures pan out, especially next week when we're in the peak of the heat wave.”
Tardy said normally San Diego’s high temperatures in March are in the upper 60s and lower 70s.
“This particular heat wave, not only is it going to be hot, but it is going to be producing temperatures that are 20 to 25 degrees, maybe even 30 degrees above those averages,” he said.
Tardy expects the heatwave to last through late next week across much of the western U.S.
He said that serious heat this early in the year can have ripple effects down the road, including premature snowmelt that affects water supplies.
“That premature snow melt is difficult to capture and we could lose some of it to the soil, we could lose it to evaporation and we may not go into the reservoirs where we need it. So that means less water into our water supply,” Tardy said.
He said the high temperatures are also stressful to vegetation, which dries out with the heat.
“We could be looking at an early fire season,” he said.
Tardy says the safest place for people who plan to be active during the heatwave is the beach, where it’s cooler.
Authorities advise the public to prevent heat-related health problems over the period by drinking plenty of fluids, staying out of the sun, limiting strenuous activities to early morning or evening, taking refuge in air-conditioned spaces if possible, and checking in on potentially at-risk friends, relatives and neighbors.
Long term, Tardy said El Niño warming ocean conditions and dry ground could lead to warm temperatures across much of the West this summer.
