Sunshine Returns With Fall

It’s official, with the last day of summer upon us and it’s no surprise that the season is going down as the coolest summer in recent memory.

In fact, since it’s the coolest since 1933 it’s probably safe to say it’s the coolest anyone can remember – period!

The National Weather Service is reporting that the average high at Lindbergh Field, the county’s “official” reporting station (and the one the rest of the world sees) was 70.8 degrees. The normal is 76.5.

While that makes it the coolest summer in some 87 years it ends up as #11 on the all-time list, which dates back to the 1850s.

A couple of other interesting mentionables: the ocean temperature also suffered, finishing 5-10 degrees below normal, averaging right around 61 or so and, get this, somewhere in the county on 54 of the 92 days of summer there was a record “low maximum” temperature set.

It was even cooler than normal in the deserts, just not dramatically so. In Palm Springs, for example, the 105.5 degrees makes it the 21st coolest summer in the city’s 88 years of record keeping.

The reason for the unusually cool weather the past three months was a fairly persistent trough of low pressure sitting offshore.

Wouldn’t you know it, that trough disappears Thursday making way for strong high pressure to move it and bring us an unusually hot “first weekend of fall."

Autumn kicks in at 8:40 tonight and this weekend we’ll see 70s and maybe even some low 80s near the coast and a lot of low and mid 90s inland.

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