A sweltering heat wave that’s baked parts of Southern California with triple-digit temperatures during the day and unrelenting heat overnight isn’t letting up yet.
Some areas in the Santa Monica Mountains didn’t drop below 95 degrees overnight. Simi Valley lingered in the high 80s and low 90s after dark and much of the rest of Los Angeles County remained in the mid- to high 70s, according to the National Weather Service.
While it’s not uncommon to have high overnight temperatures during heat waves this time of year, it can prove uncomfortable, said Ryan Kittell, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard.
“What happens is we get our marine layer squashed so low that really warm and dry layer we have above the marine layer now gets into the populated areas as opposed to being way up in the mountains,” he said. “This time of year when we have these heat waves it’s pretty common to have those high overnight temperatures.”
The soaring temperatures in Southern California are not unique to this region. International climate officials have confirmed that the summer of 2024 was Earth’s hottest on record . The global average temperature in June, July and August was a record-breaking 62.24 degrees, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.