Paso Robles shatters heat records for 6 days in a row. ‘Falling like bowling pins’
Paso Robles shattered daily heat records for six straight days — and the city could break another record on Monday, local meteorologist John Lindsey said.
Last Tuesday, the mercury hit 107 degrees at the Paso Robles Municipal Airport, passing the 106 degree record set in 1980. On Wednesday, the temperature peaked at 108 degrees, beating the 105 degree record set in 2012.
Paso Robles then beat three records set in 1987. The first was on Thursday, with a high of 106 degrees smashing the 103-degree record, Lindsey said. On Friday, the 106-degree high beat the 105-degree record, and on Saturday, the 105-degree high beat the 104-degree record.
Finally, on Sunday, the mercury in Paso Robles hit 106 degrees, shattering the 102-degree record set in 2014, Lindsey said.
During the 1987 heat wave, San Luis Obispo was the hottest place in the United States, with the temperature reaching 111 degrees twice at the San Luis Obispo County Regional Airport, Lindsey said.
“Due to the warm overnight temperatures, many Cal Poly dorms became giant brick ovens, forcing students — including me — to sleep outside,” Lindsey wrote in a post on X.
Getting to a record seven days of records could be tough, however. The National Weather Service forecast a high temperature of 99 degrees on Monday in Paso Robles. The record for the day is 104 in 1996.
“We’ll just have to wait and see,” Lindsey said.
Even if we miss a seventh straight record, the weather will still be hot inland, with highs expected above 90 through Wednesday. As a result, the Weather Service issued an excessive heat warning for the San Luis Obispo County’s inland cities, valleys and mountains until Monday at 8 p.m.
Record heat wave in October is ‘unprecedented’
Although the recent run has been impressive, it’s not the longest stretch of daily heat records.
In 1989, San Luis Obispo beat seven days of heat records from April 5 to 11, Lindsey said.
Weather records date back to 1869 for the San Luis Obispo County Regional Airport and 1948 for the Paso Robles Municipal Airport, he said.
If Paso Robles beats Monday’s heat record, it would be the second seven-day record breaking heat wave, he said.
Heat waves typically last about three days, so a six- or seven-day heat wave is “unusual,” he said.
“It’s unprecedented, especially for October,” Lindsey said.
Lindsey blamed climate change for the long heat wave on the Central Coast and said people should brace themselves for more extreme heat as time goes on.
“There is little doubt that the atmosphere is warming,” Lindsey said.
Lindsey expected the number of record low and high temperatures to be fairly even over the decades, he said. However, for every new record set for low temperatures, about 10 new high temperature records are set, he said.
“We’re seeing records falling like bowling pins,” Lindsey said. “It’s pretty unprecedented right now.”
This story was originally published October 7, 2024 at 12:41 PM.
