October Brings Heat Wave To California

By Carolyn Entress

California has been in a strand of fiery fall weather days.

The month of October arrived with a bang as temperatures soared to startling heights. Students were taken by surprise as they expected cooler temperatures but were instead forced to deal with the unseasonably hot weather.

"It's not bad compared to Southern California where I come from, where it's like 105 degrees right now, but it's still hot," said freshman Jeff Becker. "I wish there was more air conditioning!"

The National Weather Service said there could be record high temperatures across the state Monday afternoon, along with gusty winds in the mountains and extreme fire danger.

Downtown Los Angeles almost hit 100, matching a daily record set in 2008. Inland valleys in the San Francisco Bay area saw triple-digits.

On Sunday, Los Angeles' Woodland Hills area hit 103 which topped a record set in 2003 and was about 20 degrees above normal.

 Indio had a low of 81, breaking the previous record of 79 set back in 1966.

The high fire warnings were issued for Santa Clarita Valley and Los Angeles county mountains on Monday,  due to dry conditions with winds up to 20 mph. The red flags expired at 6 p.m. 

The heat started to ease Tuesday evening and temperatures will continue to plummet through the end of the week, with a high of 66 degrees on Saturday, according to the San Jose Mercury News.

Contact Carolyn Entress at CEntress@scu.edu or call
(408)554-4849. AP Reports contributed to this article.