The autumn leaves might be falling around San Diego County but the hot temperatures – well, those not so much.
Although we’re a couple of weeks into the fall season, it sure doesn’t feel like it in San Diego. The hot weather stuck around Monday; NBC 7 meteorologist Sheena Parveen said the temps would, once again, be around 15 degrees above normal for this time of the year.
“Make sure you hydrate today and stay cool,” she said in NBC 7’s First Alert Forecast.
So, not exactly the sweater weather autumn dreams are made of – at least not yet.
Parveen said Monday that she is seeing some relief in the forecast a bit later this week with a cooling trend that’ll build day by day.
“Each day this week will be cooler than the day before, with a much cooler weekend on the way,” she explained.
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The National Weather Service also said the gradual cooldown was coming. By Friday, the NWS said, temps should be up to 5 degrees below average.
Parveen said perhaps those gradually cooler conditions would also bring some light showers this Saturday.
“A storm system will impact Northern California this coming weekend, finally providing some relief from the wildfires,” she explained. “There's a small chance that we could see a stray shower or possibly just sprinkles Saturday from the tail end of this system.”
Parveen said that weather system is still a bit too far off to forecast, but she will be tracking it all week.
Hot, dry weather in October is nothing new for San Diego. The conditions this time of year can sometimes create risky fire weather; this happened in October 2003 with the devastating Cedar Fire and in October 2007 with the Witch Fire.
California’s 2020 wildfire season has been one for the history books. Since the beginning of the year, more than 8,200 wildfires in the state have scorched more than 4 million acres, according to an Oct. 4 statement from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. There have been 31 deaths related to California’s 2020 wildfires and more than 8,400 buildings have been destroyed.
On Monday, the scale of California’s wildfires reached another milestone: the August Complex in the Coast Range between San Francisco and Oregon surpassed 1 million acres. It covers 1,566 square miles. Last month, the August Complex became California’s largest wildfire on record.
