Sunday, October 11, 2015

Unusually hot nights in Southern California

The last three nights, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, October 8-10, 2015, have been unusual for southern California. This graph shows the outdoor temperature in Fahrenheit for the last five days running. The horizontal axis shows midnight for each day. The nights of October 6/7 and October 7/8 show the typical southern California pattern, a smooth even cooling off starting at sunset, with the coolest part of the day being just before sunrise.

I've taken the curve from the first night on this graph and overlaid it on the last three nights. The bold, jagged line is the actual temperature, and the grayed out smooth line below it is what the night temperature might have looked like if not for the unusual hot dry air that caused the jagged warming effects throughout the last three nights.