More record high temperatures hitting the Bay Area

Powerful wind gusts have PG&E advising that a power shutoff ‘likely’

The temperature crept into record territory in the Bay Area for the second straight day Monday, even as the focus by forecasters turned to powerful winds that threatened to leave some Californians in the dark.

“We have nothing official, because we still have time left in the day, but there already have been temperatures that have gone above what we’ve seen before on Jan. 18,” National Weather Service meteorologist Gerry Diaz said Monday afternoon.

By 1 p.m., downtown San Francisco had reached 72 degrees and Oakland 76, both high marks for their cities. Oakland’s record came on a day when temperatures there were forecast to be in the upper 60s for much of Alameda County and in the 70s inland.

On Sunday, San Jose reached 78 degrees, breaking the date’s 101-year-old mark for high temperature by two degrees. A record also fell in Livermore (76 degrees, breaking its 1986 mark of 70), and Oakland tied its mark for the day with a high of 74 degrees.

The warm temperatures are likely to dip significantly by tonight into Wednesday, meteorologist Matt Mehle said, as cooler breezes pick up and a storm system moves toward California.

That system is expected to bring showers for much of the region, and snow could mix in with it in some of the upper elevations, Mehle said.

Sustained winds were blowing between 15 and 20 mph throughout much of the region by 1 p.m. Monday and were expected to get even stronger above 1,000 feet. Peaks were expected to see wind gusts of at least 50 mph, forecasters said.

“We are seeing those strong winds sustaining themselves,” Diaz said Monday afternoon.

“It’s what we expected, and it will continue through the night.”

The winds raised the possibility that PG&E will enact a Public Safety Power Shutdown, though the public utility did not reveal any specific plans Monday. A message on its website said only that a PSPS is “likely” and that it would contact customers who would be affected.

The NWS issued a wind advisory through 6 p.m. Monday that covered the East Bay

and area of the North Bay, as well as the counties of Santa Clara, Santa

Cruz and San Francisco. The weather service said that advisory would be upgraded to a high wind warning at 6 p.m.

The gusts also brought a Red Flag Warning for the mountainous areas

of the interior Monterey and San Benito counties, according to the weather service.

Winds were especially powerful overnight in the East Bay, with the weather service measuring gusts of up to 82 mph atop Mount Diablo, Mehle said.

The winds were moving downslope of the mountain; that causes them to warm areas below them, Mehle said, and set the

stage for another warm day.

On Sunday, San Jose reached 78 degrees, breaking the date’s 101-year-old mark for high temperature by two degrees. A record also fell in Livermore

(76 degrees, breaking its 1986 mark of 70), and Oakland tied its mark for the day with a high of 74 degrees.