32°C recorded in the middle of February, in Los Angeles.
Unheard of at this time of year.
California cities are breaking temperature records as a severe winter heat wave has taken hold of the territory.
30°C in Salinas, 32°C in Oxnard, 28°C in San Francisco… They are on average 10°C higher than seasonal norms.
“Right now you have this system of high pressures and drier conditions on the surface (…) And also we live on a planet whose climate we have warmed up, so just from a purely statistical point of view, we are going to see a record increase,” says Justin Mankin, a climate scientist at the American University of Dartmouth.
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This heat wave raises fears of a particularly early fire season.
Fanned by hot winds and very low humidity, a wildfire broke out on February 10 near the upscale beach town of Laguna Beach, south of Los Angeles, where hundreds of homes had to be evacuated .
A few miles away, another fire was threatening homes in Whittier that day.
Already at the end of January, the mythical coast of Big Sur, one of the most touristic places in California, was devastated by the flames.
This incendiary phenomenon is aggravated by another sad record: Wednesday, February 9, a laboratory at the University of Berkeley recorded the longest period without precipitation ever recorded in winter, ie 32 consecutive days without rain in the region.
A drop in temperatures is expected at the start of the week.
