WALNUT CREEK, CALIFORNIA - SEPTEMBER 2: Power lines and a tower are silhouetted by the sun as extreme temperatures reach the upper 90s in Walnut, Calif., on Friday, Sept. 2, 2022. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)
The Bay Area will receive a reminder beginning Thursday that winter is still quite a bit off and summer is not as far in the rearview mirror as it may seem.
“People will gradually start to realize Wednesday that it’s a bit hotter,” National Weather Service meteorologist Sarah McCorkle said. “They’ll really feel it Thursday and Friday.”
That said, the warmup will be a relatively mild one compared with a summer sizzle. Temperatures in the hottest spots of the region are expected to get no higher than 96 degrees. Those spots are expected to include San Jose, Livermore and Concord, forecasters said. None of the temperatures were expected to break a heat record.
According to McCorkle, the only place where a new mark could be set is in San Rafael, which could match its 2014 record of 94 degrees.
Temperatures in Oakland, San Mateo and San Francisco all are expected to peak at 89 degrees, as winds are expected to blow toward the ocean and take away the natural Bay cooling.
Overall, the region’s temperatures will run on average about 7-12 degrees warmer than normal during the heat wave, according to the NWS. Forecasters said the uptick would present a moderate heat risk and urged people to hydrate.
“It’s kind of typical for what we see around this time,” McCorkle said. “We just have high pressure moving in from the eastern Pacific Ocean, and the low we just had is headed off to the east. From what I’m looking at, the strongest part of the high pressure is going to be more to the north of the region, so those are the areas that may get warmer temperatures than they might normally during a fall warming trend.”
The high pressure will cover the region until about Saturday, McCorkle said, and by Sunday, temperatures are expected to cool significantly.
Originally published at Rick Hurd