Unseasonably warm temperatures on Wednesday set several records across the Los Angeles Basin, where highs peaked in the 80s and low 90s — 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.
Daily temperature records were broken at LAX and UCLA, she said, where unofficial highs on Wednesday were 88 and 87 degrees, respectively. Records were expected to fall in more locations as official temperature readings are confirmed later in the evening.
Though the temperatures are record-breaking, Schoenfeld said it’s not 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.
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