Heat wave breaks cities’ records — dry week ahead
It’s beach weather in February. Temperatures around the Bay Area are breaking records and hovering 15 to 20 degrees above average this weekend. Rain is nowhere in sight.
“We have a very warm air mass over the West,” Steve Anderson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Monterey, said Saturday. “It’s just been persistent, and has been warming up through the week. It’ll continue into early next week.”
Many places broke daily temperatures records Saturday, and Anderson said more were poised to do it Sunday. Downtown San Francisco broke its record of 71 for the date Saturday, with a temperature of 74 degrees. The average temperature for this time of year in downtown San Francisco is 59 degrees.
Santa Rosa also broke records: It was 76 degrees Saturday and is forecast to be 73 degrees Sunday, surpassing temperature records for both dates. Oakland International Airport passed a record of 70 degrees Saturday, as it hit 76 degrees in the afternoon.
San Jose and San Francisco International Airport also broke records Saturday. San Jose had a high of 78 degrees, surpassing a previous record of 74 from 2009. SFO reached 76 degrees, beating the old record of 70 degrees set in 1984.
The record-keeping in Hayward doesn’t go back far enough to compare, but the city hit 81 degrees Saturday, said Will Pi, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
The hot weather comes during a winter that so far appears drier than average. High pressure has persisted over the region.
“That’s been the whole general weather pattern this winter. It’s been dry,” Pi said. “We had a little bit of rain. That’s been very short. That’s been the anomaly.”
While the unseasonable warmth is good news for winter sunbathers, it’s not all rosy: California is dry enough to be concerning right now. So much so that experts said 44 percent of the state is seeing at least moderate drought conditions. And rain is stubbornly failing to materialize.
“At least for the next week and half, there’s no rain in the forecast,” Anderson said. “It will continue to be dry and warm, and we’ll see record-breaking temperatures. It might not be quite as warm as this weekend, but certainly above normal into next week.”
Some temperature records were already broken Friday. Temperatures at SFO, Kentfield, Mountain View and San Jose all broke records for the date. The temperature at SFO rose to 73 degrees Friday, breaking a 23-year-old record of 69 degrees for the date. Kentfield hit 72 degrees Friday, breaking a record of 71.
The South Bay was particularly warm Friday. The temperature in Mountain View climbed to 75, breaking a record of 71 in 1976. In San Jose, it was 76 degrees Friday afternoon; the highest recorded temperature on that date was 73 in 1976.