‘Oppressive heat’ for the weekend
Livermore may be hot spot at 116; town hunkers down
The good people of Livermore, under siege from the weather gods, retreated to their air-conditioned malls, senior centers and multiplexes on Thursday until this triple-digit temperature thing eases up.
Since it might not do that for some time — perhaps a week or so — Tony Aranda figures he will be playing a lot of pool inside the Livermore Senior Center.
“I’m old, but I’m not crazy,” said Aranda, who was trying to get the 15 ball to drop into the side pocket, unsuccessfully. “It’s hot out there. Not in here. Out there.”
By out there, Aranda meant the Tri-Valley area, where the thermometer hit 102 in Livermore and 103 in Dublin and Pleasanton. And it’s heading higher — perhaps as high as 116 on both Friday and Saturday.
That’s likely to be the worst of what the National Weather Service called a weekend of “oppressive heat” in the Bay Area. But even near the water, usually a source of relief, it’s going to be hot. Forecasters are calling for the temperature on Friday to hit 94 in San Francisco and 102 in Oakland.
Weather like that comes with an excessive-heat warning, which the weather service put in place for East Bay inland valleys, and slightly less dire heat advisories that were declared for much of the North Bay and South Bay. The American Red Cross advised everyone to drink water, seek shelter from the sun, let air conditioners do what they were designed to do, and watch for signs of heat exhaustion and heat stroke.
“It’s gonna be hot,” said meteorologist Anna Schneider of the National Weather Service.
At 116 degrees, Livermore is expected to be not only the Bay Area’s hottest spot this weekend, but a record-breaker for any day in that city. The current record is 115, set on Sept. 3, 1950.
“Concord will be pretty close” to 116 degrees too, Schneider said. “There will be a lot of places in the East Bay with highs over 100.”
Temperatures are expected to be so extreme that the Livermore Valley Winegrowers Association canceled its 36th annual Harvest Wine Celebration scheduled Sunday at Las Positas College.
And the Alameda County Sheriff ’s office asked residents in the East Bay hills to not park on the streets in order to allow emergency vehicles more room to maneuver in case of fire.
The weather service is also warning that the hot weather inland could last well into next week. That is already drawing comparisons to the July 2006 “heat storm” that lasted two weeks and claimed at least 75 lives across Northern and Central California. That was the year various Bay Area cities topped 110 degrees four days in a row.
Schneider said the coming heat wave may not be that intense — starting around Sunday, inland highs are likely to dip down to the sort-of-balmy low 100s or comparatively chilly high 90s.
But weather that hot can still kill. Schneider warned people not to leave pets — let alone children — in parked vehicles because “temperatures can rise very quickly.” The state Office of Emergency Services echoed that advice.
“Don’t leave any living, breathing thing in a car — even if the windows are all the way down,” said agency spokesman Brad Alexander. “You should call 911 if you see a dog or a kid or even an adult left alone in a car.”
Beyond that, he advised, “hydrate, hydrate, hydrate.” To a layperson, that means drink water.
Anyone who needs evidence of the power of such high heat need only try baking cookies on a baking sheet on their car dashboard, Alexander said.
“We’ve had the National Weather Service in our parking lot baking cookies in their car,” he said. “Anyone can do it. It’s not hard.”
In the Livermore senior center dining hall, about two dozen folks paid their $3 for a lunch of minestrone, perhaps the only hot thing being sought out in Alameda County.
Bob Johnson, who has lived in Livermore since 1960, put down his soup spoon and said one reason he comes to the senior center is because he never sprang for an air conditioner at home.
“My late mother didn’t like air conditioners,” he said. “I never got one.”
Among the few bold folks venturing outdoors were Barbara Brady, 73, and her husband, Phil, 74, who went for a short morning bike ride while the temperature was still in the somewhat reasonable 90-degree range. They were done by late morning.
“Hot days are part of the penalty for living here,” said Phil Brady. “And when it gets really hot, the only thing you can do is get out of the way.”
The Bradys said they were heading home, at 13 mph, because home is where their air conditioner was.
Julie Kavanagh and her friend Marsha Gillette wrapped up their game early at Las Positas Golf Course. Nine holes was plenty on a day like Thursday, they said.
“You can endure it on a golf course, just barely,” Gillette said.
Betty Palmer shot a 62 for nine holes, a number that was lower than the temperature, which she said hardly ever happens.
Down the road, matinee-goers were clambering into the Livermore 13 Cinemas, where the exploits of such folks as Spider-Man and Wonder Woman were perhaps not as great a draw as the air conditioner. The movies started before noon and ended after midnight. For one ticket you are supposed to get only one movie, but during a heat wave, moviegoers are known to linger for an unauthorized double feature.
Manager Chad Musil said he was grateful to be employed in such a comfortable place.
“It’s nice to be not outside in the heat,” he said.
Another place to seek refuge is the H-bomb museum on Greenville Road. The H-bomb museum, otherwise known as the Discovery Center at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, is open from 1 to 4 p.m., is fully air-conditioned and features a full-scale replica of a genuine hydrogen bomb, the popular W62 model.
And a mission of the museum, said docent Nick Williams, is to make sure visitors are comfortable. He’ll bring in extra chairs on Friday and serve free coffee and make sure the air conditioner is active and the H-bombs are not.
“Our task is to make sure nuclear weapons will work if they’re ever needed, and we hope they’re never needed,” Williams said.
According to the museum, the temperature inside an exploding H-bomb, at 100,000,000 degrees, is exactly 99,999,884 degrees warmer than it is expected to be on Livermore on Friday.