Record-Melting Fall Heat Wave Bakes Southern California
https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/record-melting-fall-heat-wave-bakes-southern-california<snip>
It’s not every October 23 or 24 that millions of Americans are swathed in temperatures above 100°F. This week has done just that, bringing some of the toastiest weather ever observed in the United States during late October, and more pre-Halloween heat is on the way. By far the most scorching weather has been in Southern California, although it’s also been exceptionally mild this month in settings as far-flung as Michigan, Florida, and New England.
A multi-day summer-like heat wave kicked into high gear on Monday and continued Tuesday along and well inland from the California coast, from Santa Barbara through Los Angeles to San Diego. Dozens of locations record highs for the date and all-time highs for this late in the year, and Santa Ana winds kept the temperatures amazingly warm throughout Monday night. In Orange County, the city of Fullerton soared to 107°F on Monday. According to WU weather historian Christopher Burt, this is likely the hottest single temperature recorded anywhere in the United States so late in the year. Even Death Valley has never recorded a temperature this high after October 16 in any year! For comparison, the national U.S. record high for November is 105°F, most recently at Tustin Irvine Ranch, California, in 1997.
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Supposed to be the hottest day ever for a World Series. Lucky you at Dodger Stadium. Enjoy! 
Oct. 22, 1997 in Cleveland, Ohio.
The Florida Marlins played Game 4 against the Cleveland Indians in a winter-like chill. At first pitch, the temperature was 38 degrees with a wind chill of 18 degrees. Snow flurries fell throughout the game and ice patches formed on the infield. This game is officially the coldest World Series game on record.
Oh, I'm in the Sacramento Valley watching the game on the television, and it's only 80 degrees. She Who Must be Obeyed says I get apple pie at the seventh inning stretch. Woohoo!!!
it was just a boring jitteriness and my husband didn't learn to hide the knives. When the last of tropical storm Irma was coming through for a couple days solid here in north Georgia I was remembering those days because I was enjoying the wind, watching the trees toss madly, hearing one come down now and then, feeling good in our cozy home in a way I didn't with LA's gravity winds. Completely different.
I used to appraise real estate in that weather and your words made me "feel" the memories. Miss a lot of things about LA, but not 103 in the car with the windows open.
Also, inevitably, when chatting with a friend in Culver City/Santa Monica this morning, although it's so heavily developed there, because you just can't help it.
At the time we moved away from SoCal, 7 of the past 9 years had had severe drought. Back then, though, the hundreds of houses between ours and the mountains north and south that formed our narrow valley still made me feel pretty secure. Fire'd be very unlikely to be able to get to us. Uhuh.
I'm sure you have your plans, Hekate. And you're obviously...alert.
Last edited Wed Oct 25, 2017, 05:38 PM - Edit history (1)
and how lovely to hear how happy you are with it. You also can't too describe much of that kind of detail for me, including views. That's a big part of why I became a real estate appraiser, to enjoy visiting properties. 
Some of them were up your way. Oh, well.
As you undoubtedly know, just having a plan in place creates peace of mind. An especially good thing when the worry is about something very unlikely to happen. Fire yes, out of control conflagration no.
At least those poor people provided valuable lessons for others. Above all the need for good, constant information, life-threatening surprises not allowed even if it required sleeping in shifts. New awareness of speed beyond anything we'd ever worried about. We're fortunate at our ages that we don't have children. Heat kept a garage door from opening.
I think I'd have two plans. One for a fastest bug-out in car or on foot as required: 0 packing, almost no grabbing. Similar to a basic weekend getaway's supplies stored in the car. Emergency items only in little backpacks or bags, including pull-on boots or heavy shoes, in a closet near the door. I wouldn't spend much money at all on it, but a pair of fire protective blankets stuffed in the boots would be nice for running through wind-borne cinders. All very basic and could be there all the time and mostly forgotten about. Living in SoCal taught us to always grab a case of water for the car as needed when shopping. Used to have a little paper notebook with contact information and passwords. Stupid, but at the moment I can't remember any of our kids' phone numbers completely. I never dial them.
And for more time to get away, a plan with a list. My purse! Not the time to forget that. Our phones and tablets and charge cords. Interesting to realize, most of our documentation's actually on line now. Inconvenient not to have it all complete and on paper in a nice folder, but the lamp on my side of our bed that my mother in law gave me 45 years ago is far more important. Family pictures (which actually should be replicated and stored on the cloud now, available to everyone) and any special jewelry. Favorite paintings and other irreplacables that say home to us would be above almost all practical items on my list. The stuff kept in the car would do for clothes if we found we were running out of time.
Of course insurance. Our home isn't nearly as architecturally special as yours, but we have replacement cost, and, like you, once the debris was hauled away we'd still have fine land to rebuild on.
