After month of cool weather, temperatures to rise

If the past month in San Francisco seemed unusually cool to you, it wasn’t your imagination — for the first time in more than half a century, July temperatures never made it into the 70s, according to National Weather Service data.

In fact, July weather was unusually cool around the entire San Francisco Bay and North Bay, the weather service said Sunday — though a bit above normal in interior parts of the East Bay and the Monterey Bay area.

But the cool weather won’t last, with temperatures expected to climb above average through the first half of August.

The highs won’t be excessive, said Jeff Lorber, a meteorologist with the Bay Area National Weather Service office, but the area will be warmer than it’s been in past years.

In San Francisco, the highest recorded temperature last month was 69 degrees, marking the first July since 1965 that the city didn’t reach the 70s. Monterey Bay sites and interior East Bay sites both experienced slightly higher temperatures than usual.

This weekend the Bay Area experienced a subtle cooling trend, with the coastal area reaching a high in the low 70s, with interior areas reaching the high 70s and mid 80s. Temperatures in San Francisco should stay cool through the first half of the week, but will begin to warm up by Thursday with a forecasted high of 70.

While air quality in the Bay Area has remained good, historic wildfires in northern parts of the state have had a serious impact on air quality in some parts of Lake Tahoe and the Sacramento Valley. The area saw some improvement this week, though, with air quality around the lake reaching “good” and “moderate” levels.