Extreme Heat Warnings in California: Record Heat Possible — How Hot & How Long?

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]I'm West Coast meteorologist Bill Martin. It is May 11th. It's a Monday and it's hot out there. Temperatures as we go through the next day or two are going to be above average by 10 or 15 degrees. We have potential record heat in the southwest. Phoenix could go 110° today. Uh Las Vegas could set a record as well at over 100°. We have heat advisories and heat warnings, especially down towards the deserts of San Diego.

[00:00:24]Uh the coastal fog is back. It's back in a big way. Uh we have folks still skiing at Palisades. We'll look at that. We'll also take a look at the building surf and nature snacks. We do look at models, the computer models as you see here.

[00:00:39]These are some of the models we'll look at. HR, North American model in the GFS.

[00:00:43]We look at weather service headlines and some climate stuff. We look at California north to south. We'll look at live pictures all the way down the coast looking at air quality in the big urban areas. We'll get to California again.

[00:00:56]We'll take a look at today's temperature specifically in tomorrow national travel. And then in nature's snacks, we look at surf reports. We'll look at uh San Francisco, Ocean Beach. We'll look at Carlsbad. We'll look at Santa Cruz.

[00:01:09]And then we go skiing up in the mountains at Boreal. And then the birds again. So we got a lot to talk about.

[00:01:15]This system here is going to play heavily into the next couple of days.

[00:01:20]Right now, a big ridge of high pressure is settling in over the state or over the the western United States. And this area is really heating up kind of inland. This is still a different ridge.

[00:01:30]The last ridges we had were out here more. So, Reading was getting the big heat, Bakersfield left. This ridge is more tilted this way, more typical out of the Desert Four Corners area. Um, and so this is where the real big heat is.

[00:01:43]Well, we'll still see it in the central valley of California. That heat breaks as this system comes in. Um, we'll look at uh some of the snow melt you can see up around Lake Tahoe. This is uh just a panoramic camera up at high camp and you're looking pretty much towards the north. Um, and you can see some of the lifts and I'm just pointing out snow water equivalent is dismal. Palisades is still skiing though. Uh, but you can see there just really bare bones for snow up in the mountains, which is not atypical for this time of year, but it's a little less than where we'd like to be. So, here's the fog along the coast. I'll come a little closer here. Same picture actually, but you can see the fog from Northern California, Crescent City, all the way south to San Diego, Imperial City, and the fog in Los Angeles. You do see a little clearing along the coast, but this is a classic kind of high pressure that exactly where that ridge is forming right in here creates the situation along the coast where you have the advantage or the opportunity for fog to really fill in and stay right at the coast. Shallower inversions. So, it's warm away from the coast. They're hot, but right at the coast, the inversions are we'll see coming up at on one of the live cameras, but you'll see that we are at about 1,800 foot inversion, 1500 foot inversion along the coast. And that keeps the fog right there. This is the weather service headline. This is out of uh Eureka. And they're just going, "Hey, look, Monday is going to be the hottest day today. Tuesday is still pretty warm." If and you look at what they've done, right? They're just laying out.

[00:03:17]I'll go over to I'll go to Lakeport. So the yesterday Lakeport was about 83.

[00:03:22]Today they're going to go 91.

[00:03:24]Then they're going to go 83 on Tuesday.

[00:03:27]Still very warm. And then the temperatures cool down as that system.

[00:03:31]This system. And this is what I like doing because you go the cool down is this. And that shows up on on um Wednesday. Basically it start it starts to show on Tuesday. So this is the National Weather Service out of San Francisco. same thing. They're just saying, "Hey, look, got we got not records per se, but temperatures a good 10 to 15 degrees above the average in Chico, South Turk, Stockton, and Bakersfield. And then Southern California, the big numbers are in Berago Springs, Thermal, and Palm Springs where temperatures are easily going to go over 100 degrees and there will be some records set and it's dangerous heat and that lasts through um Monday evening. So, temperatures will start to cool. Vegas could set a record.

[00:04:14]105 degrees possible. This is the weather service out of Las Vegas. And this is our GFS model. Back it up. See where the orange is? That's the center of the high. You can you can pick out the high right here. You go. Oh yeah.

[00:04:27]Well, first of all, you can see trough ridge. The high the center of the high is right here, like I said. And so that's where your big heat is right in this zone. Earlier this year, the high centers were ending were up in here up around Seattle. remember last week even.

[00:04:42]Um, but the center of the high is here and the center of the high is where the air is sinking the most aggressively and there's most compression and that's where the most heat is underneath that salad bowl right in the center. On the edges it's less so. So in this area temperatures are 10 15 degrees above average. In this area still 10 to 15 degrees above average but then you see it starts to cool off. And this is is the this is this right here. This guy that low. So you can see that's going to come in and over the next 24 hours and start to cool us off. So Tuesday, this is Tuesday afternoon. It's still warm, but you can see temperatures about average or just a little above average. Tuesday, still hot. Wednesday, that clicks through and that begins the cooling. The thing to notice here too is the last month or so we have had a jetream that has been acting up, right?

[00:05:40]Where these this this is the jetream.

[00:05:43]Cool air to the north, warm air to the south. That makes sense.

[00:05:48]That wasn't happening last week. Last week, if you remember, the reds and oranges in the week before and the week before were up in this area, up in Alaska, up in Seattle, record temperatures. And then the the um blues, the below average temperatures were down closer to the equator. So it was a flip-flop. It was a very we mentioned it, we talked about if you can remember.

[00:06:07]And this pattern is now looking more like what you would expect. And we got a little chance here. You'll see a little something in the model run when we go look at the total rainfall. Um there's a little something possible in the mountains, maybe a little snow, maybe a little shower activity around the 20th of May. This is 850 8 uh 850 mibars, which is 5,000 ft in the atmosphere. So, it's up around, let's say, Blue Canyon.

[00:06:32]And it just shows what the heat's doing.

[00:06:34]And so, this is the max heating today.

[00:06:36]And you can see, and these these these dark oranges represent 15 degrees above average, maybe a little more, a solid 15 degrees above average. And that is today. So, look where you are, right?

[00:06:48]So, whatever you're if you're if you're in San Francisco and your average temperature 68 degrees, it looks like you're going to go 10 degrees to 78 degrees, something like that, above the average. You're going to go 10 degrees up. Then you see the quick cooling. This is on Tuesday. Still warm, but not as Tuesday evening. And then here comes that cool down. That that system, the low I went back and showed you twice.

[00:07:10]And then we get back to a more typical pattern. Kind of just these lows tweaking through. So, we'll come in closer. This is the H tripler rapid update and it's going to take us through two days. We're going to go to max heating today which is 12:00 1:00 3:00 4:00.

[00:07:28]Let's call max heating today around yeah 4:00. And there it is. That's how it looks. And you can see down Los Angeles about 83 degrees. 109 out towards Vegas.

[00:07:39]Um 109 um gosh all over the place.

[00:07:42]Barago Springs. Uh, Central Valley, Bakersfield will be 103, 105. Uh, very, very warm. Today's the hottest day of the week. That's where the heat advisories are. And then watch what happens tomorrow. We'll go all the way into Tuesday afternoon at 4. There it is. And you can see temperatures begin to cool down just a little bit. This HR, and that is the two-day heat wave, if you will, that we will be experiencing. The upshot to all this is in terms of heat waves, it's awesome because it's not too long.

[00:08:16]Heat waves are bad when they extend for fire, for air quality, the that whole bit, but it it takes a toll on like this map. You know, this is the map that builds on the rainfall adds. Well, heat's the same way. It just adds on the pressure on on people because it's people, pets, unhoused people, um poor people who don't have air conditioning.

[00:08:37]After about day three or day four, emergency room visits explode. And it's the most dangerous weather phenomena, heat. And it's always I even all my years doing this, I'm like, it's it took a while to understand that, but it's like, yeah, it's heat. Tornadoes are scary. Hurricanes are big and and spectacular, but it's the heat that really takes the most lives. And a lot of times, it's not even diagnosed. A heart attack. Heat exacerbates things.

[00:09:05]So, oh, this poor gentleman died of a heart attack. He triggered it, right? Or at least um yeah, helped trigger it.

[00:09:13]Helped create the problem. Okay, so we're adding now. We're going GFS. Hey, where's it going to rain? How much is it going to rain? This is that system. See that? That's that system that comes through on Wednesday that cools us off.

[00:09:25]So, it brings a little bit of rain to Mount Shasta, Puerto Rica, and Cape Menesino.

[00:09:32]And then it kind of waits for waits for and then around the 20th right around come on here we go should click in there it is that that area right there that's around the 21st that comes in. So that's our next opportunity for something but as we both know it's way too far out to to worry about. This is this is just saying hey it's going to be below average temperatures or precipitation for the next couple of days. Uh and then this is a climate model or climate page as well.

[00:10:05]Temperatures above average or at average. Well, you know, a little above average really from May 16th through the 20th.

[00:10:15]You know, I I love these maps because I like maps and I like contours. I hope you do, too. But I'm not I'm they're never I'm never really blown away by their accuracy because I think when you start playing around especially in a transition season six to 10 days out um it's hard to dial it right because anything could happen in transition season when you have summer winter fall um right you have um you have summer fall winter spring those are those are the the months or those are the the seasons but in between those seasons are transitions and those transitions the models Even us, it takes a little while to get used to. Oh, it's almost summer. It's all is it spring? Is it summer? The models do the same thing. And so that's what that's that's kind of why I I take a look at these. Wanted to bring this up. Um Lake Orville, they had an issue with the spillway. I misspoke and I said that Lake Orville was at one point the third during the the working on the spillway was issued to the third most um uh largest surface reservoir behind St. Louis. And that is absolutely incorrect and I apologize for that. That was a couple you guys caught me and I appreciate it. I just misspoke and I was like that's a fishing thinking God that's just cheesy man because it's right that's that's a big deal. So I feel I feel bad I didn't catch it and that I let it get out. I try not to do that. Um but you guys are awesome because it was it's like I would like be I would like not be as kind. You guys are like no I see what you did and it's like oh thanks. So, Mount Shasta, a little bit of an inversion.

[00:11:53]Mount Shasta today wants to go 85 degrees. It's a warm day. The climbing up there has been really good. When I was up there, I saw some guys climbing.

[00:12:03]Um, yeah, it looks really good. This is Crescent City. Crescent City say it's going to go well, Eureka says it's going to go 65 degrees. I think the fog they might get some fog clearing. Yeah, that would make sense. The fog's already cleared. That drainage basin's already pushing fog out in the last hour. Uh this is up in northeast California. This is Mount Shasta, I believe. You can barely see it. Temperature uh again in Reading is going to go 97 degrees. Alurus is going to go 87 90 degrees out by Fall River.

[00:12:35]So nice day. And see what we got here.

[00:12:40]And then this is um Stampede Reservoir. This is up at Truckucky. So, we're looking towards kind of towards the west out towards Sacramento Valley, maybe more towards um Mary'sville, you know, in that straight line. And you can kind of tell by when you look at the res, they're doing okay because you can see the you can see the the scar, right? So, they're they're filling they're filling that bad boy up, which would make sense because all the snow that they got, you know, from especially that big snowstorm melted quickly and went right into the hopefully most lot went right into the reservoir. Uh, Bu Creek Canyon temperature today. They're going to hit 95 degrees in that canyon. It's pretty hot. We're getting into fire season in this area for sure. Um, Helltown just underneath the camera. This is the actually the Helltown camera. Um, and you can tell that because you got you got some old school buses. That That's the paradise I know right there.

[00:13:36]Just like we had I always tell this story, but it's different now, I'm sure.

[00:13:41]But we lived up, we used to play in these canyons and dude there were there were some herdy dudes. There were old gold miners that lived up in the old gold miners in the 60s. I mean not like not like 9 or 49er guy but not far off.

[00:13:54]I mean they were gold miners and they had pans and or they used started using dredges towards the end of in the 70s but they were living up there and nobody checked on them. So there was like this whole community of people that were generally we didn't have any problems with anybody. They were all Yeah. It was never, it was just kind of weird to bump into people. It's kind of like a Scooby-Doo episode or something. Like we'd be up on the rivers finding rocks to jump off or, you know, a lot of lot of fishing and stuff, but you bump into these dudes. You're like, "What's going on?" And I think a lot of it had to do with when the 70s ended or when the 60s ended and that whole summer of love thing went went away and the Golden Gate Park got emptied out. Remember? um emptied out because it was just like it was the world was there for like a summer or two and then everybody had to leave and a lot of them came up into county, Trinidad area, came up into the canyon of B Creek Canyon. We had a lot we had a lot a lot of just kind of herdy hippity dudes. They were all pretty okay. Um this is Mount Tam and you can see the inversion, right? You can see it pinching down. to Mount Tam's up over 23.

[00:15:04]This picture is at 24 2,461 ft. So, it's a little below the the cap. And you can see that inversion looks like it's about,00200 feet. So, you can see it's going to be a warm day. And the reason you can tell, see how it's curvaturing curvaturing?

[00:15:20]See how it's doing this move kind of going down? That tells you that tells you that first of all, this is like it's a gravity wave. This this this fog is being forced up over this over West Point in actually which is a little higher maybe 1,200 feet and then the it wants to go it it wants to curve back down. Gravity acts on it. So these are essentially gravity waves but when you see that curvature tells me right away fog's going to burn right to the coast or it's going to burn off and you're going to see temperatures inland very very warm today. That's a easily a I mean na Napa today go 8 90 degrees. I think Livermore will go 93 degrees. It's going to be a hot one. And with the heat comes the air quality.

[00:16:11]Okay. Yeah, there's the yellow. Not horrible. Not horrible. Not great, but not horrible. Okay. And then this is um out by Fireball.

[00:16:22]Uh and it's a pretty good looking valley day for having the heat, right? So the air quality doesn't look bad in the valley. Let's take a look at this. Yeah, let's let's go back there. Yeah, it doesn't look bad, right? That's kind of where we're looking down by Fireball.

[00:16:34]So, Merced, this area. Pretty good air quality. That's going to change later on today. Huh. Yeah. So, that's what Right.

[00:16:42]So, that's what the air quality looks like. Air quality looks like that. And this is what it looks like in real life.

[00:16:47]And that that is a really pretty anytime you can see that far in the valley this time of year is pretty good. And then this is Bakersfield. You see a little bit of an inversion.

[00:16:56]put a loop on it. When I say a little bit of inversion, you see that line up by the mountains? That's the inversion.

[00:17:03]You're just seeing a little bit of dust.

[00:17:05]You know what's funny? I was I was with my son the other day riding bikes and we were looking off in the distance and I'd forgotten this and he goes, you know, we're talking about eucalyptus trees because we're looking and you see that there's a haze that comes off eucalyptus trees and it's it's almost like a kind of a glow, a misty thing kind of interesting. And I was like, he goes, I think has something to do with the trees and the oils that are released. I go, I think it does, too. So, we looked it up and it's like, yeah, they have the leaves of the eucalyptus tree when it gets hot or the air, you know, gets still emits essential oil and it that oil kind of floats and hovers around eucalyptus. So, if you're ever in a eucalyptus grove and you see that haze, usually on a warmer day and the optics have to be right, the sun angle, whatever. But, it was like, "Oh, yeah, I forgot about that." Um, they burn pretty good, too. But that was interesting.

[00:17:56]Yeah, that was good. Um, but that's not what that is. That's just haze from the day. Uh, this is the air quality down towards Bakersfield, Lancaster, and Los Angeles. Not horrible. LA looks a little sketch. Let's go down there. Um, this is Santa Barbara. And again, see the marine layers pinched down. So, you can see it's that's high pressure. The high pressure is just going like this.

[00:18:24]It's pressing down and it's a strong enough high even though it's a little further east that it's starting to push this back down in. And so Palama will probably clear today as well. Um and then the fog will come burning back in tonight. This next shot I think is Los Angeles.

[00:18:42]Um yeah, that's more I don't know if that's more Oh, we're looking towards Beverly Hills actually. So Los Angeles.

[00:18:48]you're not looking towards the coast.

[00:18:50]We're looking toward this is 240 degrees here. Um, but the air quality looks pretty good. So, I wonder, let's see.

[00:18:58]Let's do this.

[00:19:00]Oops, sorry. That's Pasadena. You can see the inversion. That's the fog right there. So, again, strong inversion.

[00:19:08]Um, let's see what the air air quality did didn't look bad though, did it?

[00:19:13]Didn't look great, but didn't look bad.

[00:19:17]So, Yeah. Okay. That's where we're looking at the distance. So, these oranges is is that I think that's um let's see. I lost my pen. Here we go. Yeah. So, this is that's an inversion. So, that what happens, right? So, the inversion exists. It's it's basically warmer air uh above cooler air, which is the morning, you know, just fog that comes in. So, the cooler air sinks until it burns off. But right now it's sinking and in this layer there's emittance from brake pads from industrial from car there's particular stuff just gets thrown up from the morning commute from industry whatever and it gets stuck in this layer right that's the Los Angeles basin that's uh that's all basins for the most part in this in this environment and that's when the air quality gets really bad and that's what they got their air quality looks a little sketch today because of the inversion Pasadena there you can see the air quality much better.

[00:20:17]And then this is out towards um Okatella Springs. Okatello.

[00:20:23]Um and Okatello is a plant. Uhhuh. Think about Okatello. I This was interesting, too.

[00:20:31]This is Let's see if I can do this right. Okay. So, I I don't know if it's going to work. I I was looking at the cameras out there, and you see a bunch of cars all kind of just, you know, BLM camping or whatever. This area is going to be hot, by the way. They're going to be over 105 degrees. But, um, and this is where there's a heat advisory, extreme heat warning. But, this is an area. It's it's a a vehicle recreation area, which is like bring your bring your um four-wheelers, bring your uh motorcycles, bring everything and just rip around. Watch out for tortoises.

[00:21:06]Just rip around out there. Um, and it's 80 it's 85,000 acres of just they call it offhighway vehicle recreation.

[00:21:13]>> Mhm. did not know that. This is the high these are the high temperatures from today or for today. Thanks for hanging in. We did the weather, right? Yeah, we got it done. Now we're just doing kind of stuff. Um it's funny. I was at this wedding. I said Holt got married. I told you. So I went to the wedding yesterday and it's it's kind of weird because I I get I know it sounds weird but and I was in television so long that when people know me I go Yeah. It's because I teleg this is tomorrow. Um but I go now YouTube. I'm like, "Shut up." Right. I know. I'm always like, "Are you kidding?

[00:21:47]That's because I never think about that." I I This is just I don't ever think I It's just there because TV was we were just like blow torch. Honestly, got millions of people a night every night for 38 years. Um and this is more bite-size, right? This is more interactive. It's kind of I like it more actually. Um but I just think that's I thought that was that was like wow, that's awesome. Yeah. Um, and these are the highs tomorrow. A little bit cooler, but still quite warm. San Francisco 67, Sacramento 91, Tiller 102.

[00:22:23]And there you see it. This they're they're having their stuff, right? This is it's it's spring. This is what happens. Just this, you know, and all that is is this cold air merging with this warmer moist air finds the southerntherly jet and just starts to do some stuff. So, you got we'll see that coming up in a minute. And then this is our cooling mechanism. You'll see the you do see the fire red flag warnings.

[00:22:50]That's not cool. Yeah, a lot of red flag warnings this year. And then there's the heat advisory in orange. And then the extreme heat warnings, those are always got those get my attention. The Arizona, anytimes Phoenix is setting records, 110 degrees possible today. Sometimes Phoenix is setting records. Um, you know, it's hot because they're hot all the time. And then we go surfing. Yeah, buddy. Nature snacking. This ocean beach doesn't look bad. Swells up. It's like 3 to 4.

[00:23:24]Yeah.

[00:23:27]And then Steamer Lane, in case you're wondering, everybody surfs.

[00:23:34]Everybody surfs and don't rack your board. Well, I'm not going to get into it. We used We I sometimes I see people when they rack their boards rack them with the fin with the fin in the back. And in all those years, we used to have the old Aloha racks and we'd rack the board. So the fin would be facing the front of the car and you rack like this. And it was it was Cooks that would put the fin back this way, back towards the back of the car, right? Because it the idea was if the board starts to slip, it the fin will grab and it won't slip out. But when you do it this way with the fin in the back, it could just slide out of those bungees.

[00:24:15]Well, fast forward 30 years, um, the car commercial guys all do it with the fin in the back because it looks cool because it get follows the curvature of the car, right? it caught the fin in the back and it's weird. And so now I see more people and I know I'll get push back on this, but if you're an oldtimer, you know what I'm talking about, right?

[00:24:35]Um it uh and I've seen guys some guys that surf in the jungle will actually and they're driving through trees like this is Costa Rica would put the fins backwards in the old days like that because they didn't want the fin to get ripped off. They'd rather have the fin slide the board. But that was the only reason. So anyway, I know that's I know but you know you know if you know you know right that's that was that's a I swear to God that's a iteration of car commercials this is point conception or that's a a um an effect from car commercials because I think the car commercials 20 30 years ago start doing that because it looks more streamlined.

[00:25:13]I know just talking a lot of people out at the beach today foggy as we talked about before. This is a college bed.

[00:25:19]This is a town called Julian. Didn't Did you know much about it? I didn't. Drew Bailey Julian was a Confederate army veteran. A lot of the Confederates came out here because after the war, the Civil War, they wanted to get the hell away from the federal government, right? So, it's the further they could get from Washington, the better. So, Los Angeles, like southern central, the southern Sanwaqen Valley, um Pasad, not Pasadena, um well, just anywhere. It makes sense, right? in the 18 18 what 70s 80s. So Julian is the name of this town. It was a the kind of the premier gold rush town in the 1870s late later gold rush um because they did have a pretty good um a pretty good gold find there. And so Julian was in the county of San Diego and this is what I like. They're apple pie capital of the of Southern California. Love apple pie.

[00:26:16]My wife makes apple pie. Oh my god, it's I don't know. And they get snow and Julian. Okay, I'm going fast now. So, this is not happening. This is happening. There's my girl. That's mom.

[00:26:29]Oh, it's hot. That's what Look at her.

[00:26:30]She Look at how she breathes when it gets hot.

[00:26:35]Yeah, I think they're okay, though. They're not moving too quick though. I mean, it's going to be 90 some degrees down there.

[00:26:46]Yeah.

[00:26:49]Turn the volume up. So crows.

[00:27:00]Yeah, that's what she does when it gets hot.

[00:27:06]Probably let her bugs out maybe because of the heat.

[00:27:12]Yeah, that's unc that's got to be uncomfortable. And I think isn't she she looks like she's shading them, does she not?

[00:27:19]It kind of looks like she's throwing shade on them. I've seen I think one of you guys I think one of you guys told me that she does shade them on purpose. She'll stick her wings out when it gets too hot cuz today is going to be that day.

[00:27:43]Ah, she's such an awesome mom and she does not like the crows.

[00:27:51]Venice Beach and Okay, pictures. That's my buddy Billy Hudson. This was up on the Mloud.

[00:28:00]We had the volume up cuz it's awesome.

[00:28:03]Um, Mloud was a The fishing was good.

[00:28:05]Billy can fish. He's Palisades guy. This is um the river. It's just a pretty river.

[00:28:13]where the rainbow trout um they basically populated most of South America and New Zealand with trout from the Mloud River.

[00:28:27]I know. Isn't that crazy? They're there.

[00:28:30]You know, like Hurst, this is Hurst old lodge. He had an old lodge down here.

[00:28:33]It's place called Audina. I say there's nobody there. It's awesome. I think um yeah, that's my van. So anyway, it's great trip. I know. Vacation pictures, right? Um that sound is sick. I We know what's going to happen, right? Um the birds kind of tell the whole story though, don't they? I mean, how hot they are. So, it's going to be hot today for her tomorrow, too. But they're set up for it. And again, if you watch us