Coolest summer in a decade chills Los Angeles

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Coolest summer in a decade chills Los Angeles ASSOCIATED PRESS August 31, 2001

LOS ANGELES – For months, Angelenos have been saying: "It's too darn cold." Turns out, they were right.

Average July-August temperatures of 71 and 72 for downtown Los Angeles and 73.1 and 75.9 for the city's San Fernando Valley were the lowest since 1987, the National Weather Service said Friday.

The downtown temperatures were about 4 degrees below normal, the valley temperatures about 1.5 degrees lower than average.

"That's not real dramatic, but it's been enough so people notice," said NWS meteorologist Tim McClung.

One of the reasons for the summer chill was a persistent 100-degree heat wave that has hung over the deserts east of the city.

Because air tends to move from cooler to warmer areas, the desert heat pulled the much cooler, damper Pacific Ocean air inland and over the city. That made for cooler days punctuated by overcast, sometimes chilly mornings.

The phenomenon, known locally as "June Gloom" because it usually occurs here in June, extended this year into July Gloom and August Gloom.

http://www.uniontrib.com/news/state/20010831-2341-coollasummer.html

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), September 01, 2001

Answers

Coastal San Diego has been similarly affected, but even cooler. The afternoon high temperature has been at least 5 degrees cooler than the mean this summer, in the low 70s rather than near 80.

It has helped the electric crisis enormously, as one of the few above normal days, July 2, brought a Stage 3 alert. If the summer had averaged 7 degrees above normal rather than 7 degrees below normal, a (regional) medium-case Y2K scenario would have resulted: Daily blackouts, boil and ration water, phone "all circuits are busy" problems, sewer backups, gasoline shortages and lines, cascading infrastructure disruptions . . .

-- Robert Riggs (rxr.999@worldnet.att.net), September 01, 2001.


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