Extreme Heat Continues In San Diego County Mountains And Deserts

Speaker 1: 00:00 And excessive heat warning remains in effect for San Diego's mountains and deserts through this evening. In fact, most of the Western part of the country has been caught in the grip of a relentless heat wave for most of this month with record-setting temperatures from Seattle to Phoenix. And yet if you live in the coastal regions of San Diego, you might not have noticed it both daytime and nighttime temperatures have been mild and comfortable. So when will the Western heat wave break and will San Diego's coastal reprieve last? And what about the chance for some rain tomorrow? Joining me is national weather service meteorologist Alex tardy. Alex, welcome. Speaker 2: 00:40 Thanks for having me on how hot Speaker 1: 00:42 Has it been getting in the Eastern mountains and deserts of San Diego county? Speaker 2: 00:46 So starting over the weekend, especially on Sunday, compared to Saturday, we saw temperatures in the desert shoot up to over 110 there, one 15, and then for the mountain areas, we're talking eighties and nineties. So barely any relief in the mountains. It looks like today will be the hottest day out there. We're talking temperatures near 1 17, 1 18 in the deserts. And does that Speaker 1: 01:09 Extreme heat also affect the east county areas like Lakeside and Escondida? Speaker 2: 01:14 Yeah. So some of it's going to reach into those areas, but at best we're talking, you know, around 94, our far Eastern suburbs and inland areas, it's a similar heat wave to what we had last week. Just not quite as hot, Speaker 1: 01:29 Closer to the coast. The weather has been great. I mean, if you don't mind a Marine layer in the morning, we've had a real pattern though, of June gloom this year, Speaker 2: 01:37 Haven't you? The weather has been great on the coast. We're kind of been spoiled with. What's been going on still lots of sunshine, even though low clouds and fog lingered in the early mornings. So we're not talking about a whole day of fog and clouds, but enough to keep us cool. Keep those temperatures knocked down at night. And during the daytime is Speaker 1: 01:57 This Marine layer likely to stick around much longer? Speaker 2: 02:00 I think it will. Uh, so our water temperatures are only in the upper sixties, maybe 70 at best. And so the difference between that cooler water and that hot air, we just talked about in the mountains and deserts, that's what forms and keeps our Marine layer, but it does look like it in the seat wave. And as we go into 4th of July, we'll keep at least some of that Marine layer around now monsoonal Speaker 1: 02:22 Moisture is predicted to move into San Diego county tomorrow. Will we see rain and thunderstorms? Speaker 2: 02:28 Yeah. So the monsoon flow usually kicks in in late June or early July. What that means is the wind direction allows moisture to come in from Mexico, from the Baja region of Mexico, from the south. So we're seeing this big upper level, high pressure area. That's usually starting to anchor over the desert Southwest. It's now sitting over Portland and Seattle giving extreme, almost unbelievable temperatures up there on 110. Uh, so the wind flow around that is going to bring up some moisture to us. I'm not a hurricane, but tropical moisture. And that's what the monsoon flow does. And that looks like thunderstorms will become active over our mountains and maybe even spill into some of our deserts over the next couple of days. Yeah. Let's Speaker 1: 03:13 Talk about that. Heat dome you referred to, that's been sitting over the Western states, what's causing it. Why is it lasting? Speaker 2: 03:20 Well, usually this time of the year, what causes it is the desert areas like Phoenix and Las Vegas. They receive a lot of sunshine before the monsoon develops and the land, the desert area, the sand gets really hot. And that's what usually forms the main dome of high pressure that we're talking about. But in this particular case, it's quite unique. Uh, we've been tracking it from the Northeast and new England about two weeks ago, then it moved over to the middle of the United States and they had excessive heat then last week and moved over the desert Southwest. And we broke all time records like Palm Springs, pine 1 23 salt lake city, 1 0 7. Now it's shifted up into the Pacific Northwest. So almost everyone has had their share. And we're talking about all time records up there. Well, it looks like will happen though, is it'll shift back down to where it normally is in the desperate Southwest as we go into 4th of July weekend. But that just means hot for our deserts and continued hot as we get into July, some Speaker 1: 04:17 Connection between this prolonged heat wave and the drought that most areas of California are experiencing. Speaker 2: 04:24 We do usually see a connection. I think we've seen some of that in June already, and maybe even in late may where the areas that are much drier than they usually are, which is right now, central and Northern California, but it's expanding as we know into Southern California after this last dismal, dry 50% of average winter, we see a connection though, because like I mentioned, the high pressure of the heat dome really likes the deserts because they have very little precipitation. They heat up rapidly this time of year with the high sun angle. But we're seeing some connection to Northern California where the heat waves are worse than they normally are because of the dry conditions. So the short answer to your question is, yeah, there is a connection it's not direct, but there is a connection between unusually dry areas and excessive or prolonged heat waves. Let's Speaker 1: 05:10 Watch the longer range forecast for San Diego this year. Speaker 2: 05:14 I think, you know, we're going to get our turn as we get into July and especially August here, even in San Diego. So it's going to be a long summer, unfortunately, a lot like 20, 20, several heat waves, probably all the way into September. And unfortunately at least one or two of those are going to start affecting us here on the coast. It looks like it's going to be later in July, but still the summer is early. And it looks like much above average temperatures or in other words, more heat waves than average all the way through the summer. So a really long summer. So we're going to be talking about, you know, flex alerts and high fire danger and just playing excessive heat for a long time. Speaker 1: 05:50 Okay. Then I've been speaking with national weather service, meteorologist Alex tardy, Alex. Thanks a lot. Thanks for having us on again.