California Heat Wave Builds: Record Highs Possible This Week

Added: 2026-05-11

[00:00:00]the weekend. It is May 9th. It's a Saturday and we've got heat to talk about. The West Coast is going to bake as we go into the middle of next week.

[00:00:07]It breaks on Wednesday in terms of the heat, but we got extreme heat warnings, extreme heat or heat advisories, heat watches. We've got air quality concerns already down in parts of the desert. Uh we could see more air quality issues.

[00:00:20]Then you get into the allergies as well.

[00:00:22]Um, and again, it's a weekend, so it's going to be very warm and people will flock to the beaches and it's that time of year. So, temperatures a good 10 to 15 degrees above the average for where you would expect for this time of year.

[00:00:36]So, let's get to it. One of the things we're going to look at, we're going to take a look at the headlines, the National Weather Service headlines out of Sacramento, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. We look at the computer models, right? We're going to look at the GFS and the North American models and then the GFS and then HR. Again, just to kind of take us through the forecast period.

[00:00:55]How long is it going to be hot? Right?

[00:00:56]How long is it going to last? How hot is it going to get? Then we do California north to south that starts at about Shasta and we look at the weather incrementally all the way south of San Diego. We end up in uh at UC San Diego as we go through these live cameras. We also have air quality checks in the urban areas like Los Angeles and San Francisco. So, we'll take a look at the air quality as well. And then forecast highs for California today, tomorrow, the national travel if you're interested in that. Real quick look at that. And then the surf report. How's the surf doing? What do the waves look like?

[00:01:28]What's the rip currents look like? This is the type of system where of course rip currents. You might see some kind of a statement from the National Weather Service about rip currents because of the weather. A lot of folks head to the beach when it gets warm, especially if there's no fog. And then we look at a new live nature snack camera and Palisades Tahoe. They're still skiing, but there's no snow on the ground. We end up with Eagles and Venice Beach. So, let's get started right away. We move in close and you can see we've got fog along the coast. This is uh Northern California obviously uh Cape Mendescino here. And then you can see all the way south. That's fog along the entire coast of California down into Mexico. Little break in San Los Aispo. see some lightning strikes up around Billings. Um some lightning strikes down around uh Baton Rouge as that system as those systems continue to move through. We're most concerned with this. So this is your today. Now is fog going to clear from the coast? I think it will clear a little bit. I think we're already seeing some of that. See how that north wind that north wind is is an indicator of the high pressure, right? Because the clockwise flow um and out and that creates a north wind. You can see that's it's a we in um the surf world north wind is kind of offshore. We call it sideshow, but north north north north north north north north north north north north north north north north north north north north north north north north north north north north north north north north north north north north north north north north north north wind can easily pull a little east and you blow the fog away especially on the inside of Kate Mendescino right so see that fog blowway and down by point arena you're seeing some fog getting blown away um and that's in the north that's where the high pressure is the strongest right now and the high pressure is going to produce temperatures like I said upwards of you know 95 96 degrees some in the deserts we're going to see with that extreme heat warning is we're going to see temperatures in the low 100s so this is the weather service headline. These guys out of Eureka going, "Hey, we're not used to this, but places in in um in the north are going to get into the 90s on Monday." Monday looks to be the warmest day so far. This is Weaverville, 91 degrees, Garberville, 91 degrees. But even on um Saturday, 85 in Willow Creek, 81 and Sunday, and then back to 91 on Monday, and then a cool down. And then we can look at Willlets, which is usually pretty warm. Willitz is going to end up at 87 on Monday. Kovaleo 92. So these are temperatures that are pretty much above where you would expect for this time of year. High temperatures early next week. This is the National Weather Service out of Sacramento and their headline is yeah, it's going to get hot. Chico area, reading area, we're going to see, you know, temperatures into the near 100 degree reading. So it's noteworthy. And not only that, you get into um fire issues and air quality issues as well. And the pet things, something very close to me, my dad's a veterinarian, was a veterinarian. He passed, but and up in the up in the valley up in paradise. And you know, in these heat ways back in the day, people didn't get it. Like ranchers got it about animals, but a lot of people, casual pet owners, didn't really understand how hot it was and how hard it is on animals. It's hard on everybody, but day after day of heat and then on the concrete and what have you.

[00:04:30]So, this is the weather service. These folks out of Sacramento are saying, "Hey, look, uh, is this Sacramento?

[00:04:36]Where are we at here? I I guess it's Reno. Maybe it's I don't know which one this is, but it's a weather service in the in the state." And they're basically going, "Look, they take care of the pets because it's really brutal on them." And then this is out of San Diego. This is that extreme heat warning in thermal Palm Springs and in Berago Springs and Aatella Wells. So, it's just it's you get it. It's going to be hot. And the real heat shows up looks like it shows up more on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, and then starts to Wayne. And you'll see it here. This is 500 mibar uh temperature anomalies. And what you'll see is the red or the oranges, right?

[00:05:14]You you're used to looking at this that ridge and the ridge shifts a little bit, doesn't it? Shifting to the east. And you see that ridge access right here. So that's the way it's that's the ridge access right there. And that's you can see it's actually favoring a bits of southern California. And this is something we haven't really seen before.

[00:05:32]We've been seeing it mostly in the Pacific Northwest, but this ridge is extending all the way south now. Still pretty aggressive in the north, but extending further south. So this is 11:00 tonight.

[00:05:44]This is Saturday. And then see it build out, builds out. Now it's in the four corners. Builds out, builds out, builds out, builds out. This is on Monday.

[00:05:52]That's your day right there. Monday's the heat day. and you know hotter and in and in in the south central east part of the uh California but it's going to be pretty equal opportunity to heat all the way up into Seattle as well. And then here comes the air conditioning right here. So, this is on Wednesday. A low comes in. This one kind of almost an appropriate low because it's coming from the right direction. Not underneath, it's not um underneath the highs necessarily that moves through. That is on Thursday and then a little bit of a warmup on Friday and then something like this. So, we'll see. So, that's So, here's the deal. It's going to get hot.

[00:06:33]It's going to be nice the next couple of days. Bay Area, Los Angeles, it's going to be warm. You go, it's pretty warm.

[00:06:38]But somewhere on Monday, uh, Sunday, Monday, and a little bit into Tuesday perhaps, you're going to go, it's really hot. And that's when and that's day after day after heat, day after day of heat. And that's when the um, what do you call it? The impacts of the heat because that's on people, pets, elderly, unhoused. It's the first day of the heat wave is not a big deal. You get you get a number of days in a row.

[00:07:04]That's when you have problems. So about the time it starts to get really to be an issue. We're going to break it with that Wednesday cool down. This is just a a sea level. No, this is a 5,000 ft temperature anomalies. You see you see it ramp up today at 5:00. These are temperatures. This is well, let's see.

[00:07:22]It's saying it's let's call it 10° at 5,000 ft. So that's 20°. That's 2°.

[00:07:29]That's about 85° 88 90 degrees in the central valley. So if you just go if you take that 5,000 if you're at 5,000 feet and you go down you know 1,000 feet at a time you're actually heating the atmosphere. So and then this is on Sunday and then you'll see the real heat come in here on Monday. This is the GFS. See there's the heat. So this is Monday morning.

[00:07:53]Look at that. Really comes right see it in the kind of the eastern part of Nevada. Lake Tahoe is really hot. Wow.

[00:07:59]See what those numbers look like. 12 degrees Celsius again near 5,000 ft. So, and then you'll see it cool off. See?

[00:08:08]And then you'll see that that that low come in. So, that's on Wednesday.

[00:08:13]Okay. So, that's a pretty distinctive change of so we can look at temperatures more directly. This is um the North American model.

[00:08:22]And let me zoom it up a little bit. Can I?

[00:08:26]Yeah, I'm going to do it. Yeah, I guess I can do it. Look at that. Okay. It's not perfect, but it's close. I'll back it up one. Okay. And then this is you'll see the the heat come in. This is this afternoon. This afternoon, you read those numbers pretty clear. So, nice day. Central Valley, low 90s. And then we come into Sunday, which will be should be a little bit warmer in some cases. See if we get there. Sunday.

[00:08:54]There we are. Okay. So, Sunday afternoon, look at deserts. 101 down towards Mojave, 105 down towards or Vegas, 103, and then let's see if we can get one more in this run. This a shorter, higher increment model.

[00:09:10]And then here we are here. Okay, so this is this is Monday. So, this is the big the moment, right? It's it only goes through till 3:00. Probably going to be warmer than that, but you can see the temperatures, right? So you see 100 degrees in Central Valley, 103 in Bakersfield, 102 in Fresno, 88 up around Gasket, San Francisco. Got a little fog in the city, so it'll be 69 degrees. Marin County in the low 80s. It's pretty warm.

[00:09:38]Pretty warm. And then it breaks. Okay, so what's the story? Pretty nice next couple days. Warmer than it has been.

[00:09:44]Fire danger comes up. Air quality is not so great. And then right when we hit the apex of heat on uh Monday, Wednesday, uh Tuesday starts to chill a little bit, still very warm, but Wednesday is when that that next low comes in. Not anticipating weather. And you'll see that here on the accumulated rainfall forecast for all of us, including Greenland. Okay, I like this map just because you go, where's it raining? So here's Monday.

[00:10:22]Thursday. So, oh, that's interesting, isn't it? So, see the model brings a little some in. That's the cool down.

[00:10:28]See, it just touches that to the coast.

[00:10:29]It's interesting. So, it says maybe some drizzle on the coast on Wednesday with that incoming system. And then we keep going. Remember, it's accumulating to get something a little something. But, oh, that'd be interesting. So, that's way down the road on the 20th. So, it's just like, oh, maybe something's gonna happen.

[00:10:49]All right. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't prepare any awesome uh north to south today. They're actually really awesome and nature snacks, too. But I was gone for a few days. Was up in the um up in this area up in fishing and it was good. No rattlesnakes, which was nice. It wasn't that hot, which is usually you see a lot of snakes up in there. Uh no bear, didn't any bears, couple osprey. They're cool. Um, but the uh the weather was awesome. I was thinking about it, too. I haven't done this a long time, but it's a it looks like a really good week to climb Shasta, truthfully. Um, or when I was up there, it looked really good because it was still it wasn't that hot.

[00:11:27]Maybe a little difficult in the in the slushiness. But anyway, there's Mount Shasta. There's a little bit of a haze inversion. Could be wood smoke. Could be factory or I don't know if there's any lumber out there anymore. Is there?

[00:11:39]Yeah, just a little bit of that. Mount Shasta today goes 84 degrees. That's Crescent City. So, the fog's back. We saw that there'll be a little bit of clearing in Crescent City a little bit. Um, live picture there. And now we work our way into Oh, good. You can't see this. This is out towards Goose Lake, but you can see Mount Shassa. Now, this is if you're on an iPhone, you're not going to be able to see, but that's Mount Shasta from a few miles away. And this is Goose Lake.

[00:12:09]And we are up at uh 7,000 feet looking straight across to 255 degrees. So just almost a little bit of west. Yeah, a little bit of west southwest. That's Mount Shasta. So Alurus today goes wow that's kind of shocking. Alurus wants to go 82 degrees today. This is uh Lake Almanor and then this is obviously Mount Lassen and just a beautiful shot. And there was I was stunned how much snow was on both Lassen and Shasta on the way up. I was not stunned, but I was like that's pretty good coverage. Pretty good coverage because they've had I talked to some of the guys up there at the fly shop and some of the people I know from up in the area and there it's been wet.

[00:12:53]You know, it's been kind of consistent.

[00:12:54]remember we had those lows going through and they were consistently getting you know raindrops and this and thunderstorms and snow and so there it's been sort of a interesting period for them and it seems really dry where I am especially in um in March but they they seem to do okay. So there's Mount Lassen. Mount Lassen today is going to go 78 degrees. Bu Creek Canyon. I was looking at this this morning thinking about first a little bit of smoke in there. So I think I think some of these folks might burn a little wood in the morning. I don't know. Um but I just look at that and I go that is you want to talk about a funnel for fire, right?

[00:13:34]Because this is basically we're looking towards the south. So this is kind of the from the north. So this canyon essentially runs from north to south.

[00:13:43]Well, when we get this in this Bu Creek Canyon, we used to have a lot of fires in the canyon. When I was a kid, because I lived up here, feather Orville's over here, feather canyon's over here, but that's a that's a um that's a funnel and direction, right? Because you are facing south, that means it's a north south.

[00:14:00]And the winds when they go Diablo and they go red flag warning are usually out of the north to northeast. Um and that's what happened. Like when I think about funnels now, like I think about Coffee Park, Fountain Grove up in Santa Rosa and all you got to do is and you could be out not even in a fire zone. You don't think like Coffee Park down there.

[00:14:20]They didn't think this kind of urban.

[00:14:22]But what happened was the wind clocked just enough into that funnel, right?

[00:14:27]Just enough. You've you've experienced this in your time, you know, just in the world where the wind clocks into it and just gets that perfect northn north northeast direction. at, you know, at uh 368 and that's it. Boom. And it's on and it you get a Venturi moving through there and you can it'll that's so when I think about you know that's the thing that's interesting about California sorry um but when you think about it the drainages right because the Sierra Nevada mainly the Sierra Nevada for this for this discussion the everything drains right kind of out of the northnortheast or northeast. So the drainages, right? The Sacramento River, the Feather River. Feather River drains from the northeast. Um Sacramento River drains a little bit more easterly or well from no northeast as well. Feather River. I'm just saying all these canyons are cut in this kind of a a general direction where if you get an easterly flow, not everyone, but every once in a while you'll get the right flow direction in there on a bad red flag compression heating day and you're going to have a blowtorrch. And there's no way around it. It doesn't matter. You can there's no way around it. You can make defensible space and stuff, but I've seen it and and you can't there's not much you can do. It's always been that way. We just don't really talk about but think about the drainage bases, right?

[00:15:46]They all flow out of the let's just say they all flow out of the east essentially, right? Off the Sierra Nevada um flowing towards the west.

[00:15:54]Well, that's our fire winds are generally easterly east easterly northeasterly component winds. Does that make sense? I know. Not to be scary or anything, but it's just I' it's I've been doing this so long and it's like I had I had a discussion long time ago with some friends and they were like, "Well, this this can't happen." It was actually before the Palisades fire and I said I said, "Nothing's safe." Well, no, that you could never burn. You know, LA and these No, you can't. Because when the winds are right and the funneling is correct, you're not stopping the fires.

[00:16:25]They're just going from building to building to building. And that's I don't there's nothing you can def there's only I don't know how you defend against that. I got I I go on a tangent, but it's mostly to say this is where we live. Get used to it. And the Native Americans knew it. The early settlers knew it. The Spanish knew it. Look where they built the missions. Look where they built the their their their um their tribes where they had their camps where they had their villages away from tsunamis, away from flood planes. That's how because for thousands of years and that's this is just something I'm bringing up something you probably know but you never think about and I never think about but when I go oh yeah this is California so when when something happens I'm not really ever surprised dude this is I'm this there was a off Santa Barbara the you know this mission in Santa Barbara upstate street the channel islands are out here off Santa Barbara they had an earthquake I think it was it was a lands it could have been an earthquake caused a landslide, but it was basically the Channel Islands just underwater landslide, put up a tsunami, uh 50 feet high, 100 feet high, came right up in there. This now this is ancient times, but this is, you know, this is in the record. You can see this in the rocks. You can see it in the sand, in the in the in the road cuts.

[00:17:50]Um, and so you can't never be surprised.

[00:17:53]this place is, you know, that that's you would never see that coming. Underwater landslide. I mean, they caused tsunamis.

[00:17:59]That's what happened. Yeah. It's a long time ago. So, I'm just saying whenever I hear something, I kind of go even the even the um palace. I go, "Yeah, that's that's California, man. It's it's volatile as all hell, but it's awesome."

[00:18:13]Okay. I didn't mean to scare you this morning. I just think it's interesting.

[00:18:16]Um because what if you know what you got, then you can you can operate more intelligently, I guess. So, these are the uh air quality reports from today.

[00:18:29]And you can see we've got not great Bay Area, San Francisco, Sacramento. This is M or this is um sites. This is looking over at Sutterbutes.

[00:18:40]I was thrilled when I heard some other geologists the other day say, "You can't measure them. They're not the smallest mountain range in the world." because I always I've been saying that forever and no one even my geology geography teachers at Cal were like no it's smallest mountain fountain range like I don't think it is um Sutterbutes kind of out by sights reservoir which I think is a good idea I drove through there yesterday looking thing that's an awesome idea um unless it you know unless there's some endangered species or something that's going to get in the way but looks like a pretty awesome area to put water uh this is out by Fireball hometown of Josh Allen Fireball's ferry there was ferry that went across the Sanwaqin River. That's how it got its name. And then this is Bakersfield.

[00:19:23]I'm going to a wedding today. Uh Holt Hanley, who if you watch TV, he's KSBW weather meteorologist. He's my intern. And so Holt and I've been I've known him since I've known since he was born, but he was in um he was in high school was my internet channel, too, which is like you're not even supposed to do that. But I go, "Come on, let's do it." Because he was so into it. Anyway, he's getting married, so I'm kind of stoked for that. But you might know him.

[00:19:50]I get people think he's my son, which you know, I my Bill is my son, but um he doesn't look like me, but he is uh associated with me in some ways. So, he's a good kid. Holt Hanley. He's I think he does weekends at KSBW and that's in the Selenus area. This is the air quality down by Fresno. I'm a little bit um sort of interesting because usually when I do these I've been doing them day after day after so it's really easy say it's kind of hard because like I've been dude I've been gone fishing was sick by the way this is uh air quality fishing was really good was really good dries I know dry flies goodiz dry flies there's a little bit of a hatch going on some stone flies um caught a bunch of them didn't I you know what I caught This is weird and maybe I um Dave you can chime in on this but I caught a big um I know I think I caught a cutthroat and I think I know actually I know I cut a cutthroat and I'm not sure that cutthroats are in the mloud and they I don't know if you want them in the mloud but he's big about 18 inches nice fish orange gills the whole bit but um I think I'd heard they were in there before but I've never I usually usually catch browns and rainbows but anyway it was a good trip.

[00:21:07]It was a good trip and the first time I was up there I was there was nobody. It was just me. So, I got to fish like 36 hours alone, which was sick. Um, then it filled up a little bit towards the last couple days. Okay, air quality. Look at Los Angeles. Not looking good. This is a Gibralar in Santa Barbara. I point this out because this is probably one of the funnest bike rides ever out of Santa Barbara. Goes right up the mountain all the way to the top. Whenever I'm there, I ride it. Um, yeah, it's it's a ride. It's and it on a motorcycle on on an ebike it's not really a ride. It's but it's pretty it's worth saying but I I'm I could see where you might need a electric bike if you don't ride a lot. This is the air quality in Los Angeles and this is not good remember. So we look down it and that's what bad air quality looks like and that's morning commute and the high is going to create some bad air quality.

[00:22:03]We got bad air quality down in the deserts.

[00:22:07]um down towards the Palm Springs area.

[00:22:10]The air quality is not that good right now. And then this is Santa Barbara or UC, sorry, the University of San Diego.

[00:22:18]Beautiful. They had a little coastal fog. These are your forecast highs. Hope you have a a good weekend planned up. Um these are the highs for today. So these are pretty toasty, right?

[00:22:29]Look at Sacramento at 90 95 at Chico, 97, and Reading.

[00:22:36]And then it cools off a little tomorrow.

[00:22:39]Maybe a little seab breeze. Still well above the average. You can see this the array of temp. Look at these. 107 106 in Vegas 10. That's big numbers. Your way 85. A little cooler along the coast. Los Angeles 83. But you're going to start getting into air quality issues here.

[00:22:57]Obviously that's a that's a real those whites representing 100s.

[00:23:04]And then the national map.

[00:23:07]Yeah. Yeah. California is funny. I mean, it's, you know, it's it's a it's I I don't know how to describe it. I think I I think what I what I said before was enough. I just think it's full of it's all, you know, earthquakes, 1906, um Oakland Hills fire. Mhm. Uh mudslides or alpine meadows, avalanche. I mean, there's just something. There's always stuff. And it's I think it's the price you pay for living in a dynamic, beautiful landscape. It's not a It's not a price to pay. It's just be aware. Um, and then these are the this down here.

[00:23:45]This is interesting. This brown areas in and in in Arizona and down southern that's brown is like really nasty air quality. And those purples are extreme heat warnings, which is a big one.

[00:23:58]That's a big one. Especially if you have respiratory issues. It's Ocean Beach.

[00:24:02]Swell's not that big. I didn't look. I should have looked. Let's see.

[00:24:10]Swells. Yeah, swell comes up a little bit tomorrow and looks like Tuesday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, 20 around the 20th. It looks like there's some real swell showing up like 12 foot, something like that. So, we'll see. It's ways out. And then this is Cape Menescino.

[00:24:30]Mhm. Beautiful day. Interesting. You'd think it'd be busy on a Saturday, huh?

[00:24:34]On a day like that.

[00:24:37]Um, and then this is I can't tell you where this is because it's a super secret spot.

[00:24:42]But you can see where it kind of wants to peel. See how it wraps into the harbor? You know where it is. But if you don't, I'm not going to tell you. But when it wraps in, it comes in. This is almost facing You're almost facing south here. The swell comes in and wraps around into this sandbar.

[00:25:01]a favorite of many. Probably one of the best most very photographed wave. This is San Francisco.

[00:25:09]Looks like we're up. That's the Bay Bridge. It kind of looks like Oh, we're up by Point Richmond. Yeah. Or kind of up by Richmond by the refinery. That's a Osprey nest built on an old crane. I don't think that crane is operating anymore.

[00:25:26]And you'll see him moving around there.

[00:25:28]I I was watching them earlier.

[00:25:32]You can see them. Ospreys are awesome. I didn't You know, that's weird. I didn't see any eagles or osprey yesterday or day before. Palis heads.

[00:25:45]Okay, let's see what's going Billy Hudson was up with me up fishing. He can fish. If if he's if you're ever in a room with him drinking beer and he tells you he can fish, he's not lying. We walked we went up we were doing a section last night up the river and he's on one side of the river which by the way getting across the river is not easy and then he's on that side because there's nobody ever fishes it so but we're going up the river and he's catching God I hate to say this I can fish he's catching three fish to my one I know euro nymph thing but three three to one's pretty good and and I'm getting the hits I'm just not that quick you know cuz They're kind of slurping it. They're not really hammering it. So, you got to just kind of feel the nudge. And he's just twitchy little dude, man. We're very competitive that way. But he's he's a good guy. He's up there fishing today. I think this is uh our friends. How big they're getting.

[00:26:41]You can see the feathers coming in. Oh, we are fledging hard.

[00:26:45]That's kind of nice that mom feels like she can leave them alone. I guess they're big enough.

[00:26:52]Let's do some sound.

[00:27:01]cars, motorcycles.

[00:27:11]All right, we're not getting much noise out of these girls. Anyway, they look good. Let's see. Look, there she feeding them in the morning.

[00:27:23]the sun up a little bit.

[00:27:30]They look pretty healthy, don't they?

[00:27:32]All right, there's Venice Peach. Oh, that's fun.

[00:27:37]Nice.

[00:27:40]That's cute. Those girls did still there. So, I didn't buy it for Pam for Valentine's Day or Mother's Day. Oh, Mother's Day tomorrow. Don't screw it up, guys. Um, I will see you back here.

[00:27:53]Um, I don't think I'll do anything tomorrow, but I'll I'll do something Monday. I'll be back on my game on Monday. Promise. See you there.