119 today in suburban Los Angeles.

[kestrel91316]

Record temps just announced today on KNBC news - Woodland Hills hit 119. This is not a typo.

Also, WH has had 17 straight days of temps over 100.

Completely unf---ingbelievable, even for the hot spot of the San Fernando Valley.

[PollyH]

1. Hot Temp

Wow! It's only 102 right now in Las Vegas. We are practically shivering compared to you.

[napi21]

2. WOW! I've been b'ing for a week because we've been at 95-97

every day! Are you threatened with brownouts again?

I know parts of NY were last week because of the extreme demand on electricity.

[kestrel91316]

5. LA DWP is owned by the CITY (the people) and is well-run, so no

brownouts here. But if this had been a weekday it could have taken us over the top? They seem to have much better power management than Edison (outside city limits).

AC at my house has been running full blast for hours and is barely keeping it at 80.

[adriennui]

25. parts of queens, NY

are still without power.

[valerief]

3. Oh, my dear, global warming is just a state of mind. A silly rumor.

Anti-petroleum chatter. You're not hot. You're liberal.

Just babbling here. I'm hot, too.

[kestrel91316]

6. I'm hot. And my tomatoes are now oficially quite dead.

[napi21]

9. So far, my tomatoes haven't died, but when my hubby picked a few

the other day, he said they felt hot enough to think they were being cooked!

[kestrel91316]

14. It is routine here for tomatoes and peppers to cook right on the vine.

Actually they sort of melt.

[valerief]

19. Wow! I've heard of hot tomatoes and hot peppers but I didn't think

it was Fahrenheit.

[flamingyouth]

4. Holy crap

I've spent quite a bit of time in WH and know it's often an oven, but that is AWFUL. It's 95 at my house in Seattle, which is a record for here.

[kestrel91316]

7. The highest I can ever recall it getting ANY day of the year is maybe 114.

This blew the all-time temp record right out of the water, I think. But you won't hear any more about it I bet.

[benburch]

8. This has to be killing people. nt

[kestrel91316]

12. Well the power has stayed on for the most part - just a few small spot

outages, and everybody knows to go to libraries or malls to cool off if need be. They can hop on a city bus and just ride around, too. But most places here have AC (some older apartments only have window units) because our heat in this corner of the valley is legendary (just not usually THIS legendary).

If the power failed on a large scale you would see a lot of deaths.

[benburch]

18. Where are you in relations to Chatsworth?

I have some old friends there.

[kestrel91316]

23. Chatsworth is also a hot spot. It's 6 miles N of WH, in the NW corner of

the SF Valley.

And home to America's porno movie industry.

[benburch]

30. In which industry my old friends work... nt

[kestrel91316]

31. LOL.

[benburch]

32. I have some "colorful" friends. nt

[msongs]

10. nice thunderstorm in riverside an hour ago. cooled things down to 102

maybe another one coming in from the east now.

Msongs
www.msongs.com/political-shirts.htm

[kestrel91316]

15. Yeah, but now your humidity's up to 85%, right?????

[napi21]

11. The news guy on KGO just said it was 120 today in Palm Springs.

Gee, I knew it got warm in So. Cal. but I NEVER knew of it to be THAT HOT!

[kestrel91316]

16. We frequently beat out Palm Springs in the temperature dept. It's

LA's dirty little secret.

[girl gone mad]

13. which suburb?

Dallas was a pleasant 93 today, and I do mean pleasant after our weak of 105 - 109 THI temps. I can't believe LA was 10 degrees higher than that, because that was just awful. And poor Seattle - central AC is still not common there, is it?

[kestrel91316]

17. Woodland Hills. West end of the San Fernando Valley.

[girl gone mad]

21. Oops... I see

you mentioned that in the OP but I overlooked it. Stay cool and be sure to watch your pets - it's easy to miss the signs of dehydration and animals can start to behave strangely if they are out for any amount of time in that kind of heat.

[kestrel91316]

24. LOL, I'm a cat vet. I deal with lots of sick kitties in our heat waves.

It decompensates all the borderline renal patients.

[girl gone mad]

38. It was on my mind because..

my kitty who got out in the heat last week. I went to find him and he wouldn't come back to me right away. He was acting feral. One of my neighbors had a cat run off on the same day and he and still hasn't found her.

[maxsolomon]

51. Central AC is for wimps

it is NOT neccessary here. you only need it about 1 week a year.

[kestrel91316]

57. Ok. You come down here and sit through a 119 degree heat wave

and say that.

I'm waiting........

(lol)

[maxsolomon]

59. UP HERE it is

down there its survival.

but there's a reason that people didn't live in the desert in great numbers prior to AC - and AC is not forever. given HOW we make power, the current power usage level is not infinitely sustainable.

[Odin2005]

20. 119F!?! Holy fuck.

[kestrel91316]

22. That's sort of what I said........

[wtmusic]

26. Woodland Hills was 114º at 11 AM

Not a good day to put in 50 miles on my bike. :(

[kestrel91316]

27. Not very smart, IMHO. You don't want to become a statistic.

Oh, and HI NEIGHBOR!

:hi:

[wtmusic]

28. Hey neighbor

Riding up Topanga Canyon from the beach was where it got ugly. It wasn't very smart--fortunately I had lots of water.

:hi:

[kestrel91316]

29. I'm smarter than you. After work I went to lunch at BJ's in Warner Center

and had a nice cold beer and a sandwich.

Their AC was struggling to keep the place tolerable, BTW.

[kestrel91316]

33. 7 PM. Still 100 on my front porch in Encino (just E of WH 3-4 miles).

[Pooka Fey]

34. What The Fucking Fuck!!!???!!!

I grew up 20 minutes from there, and after college I lived there. There were large lovely shade trees everywhere!! This is unbelievable. Now I live in Phoenix where it's been flirting around 117/118 for the last 2 days (which is pretty damn hot) - but this is Phoenix so I won't say 'WTF!' - but 119 in L.A.??? :wtf: Can we believe in global warming yet? PLEASE? And then have our leaders step up and force all us spoiled-ass Americans to cut emissions to the bones NOW? No, because then they will never get re-elected, and a re-election is more valuable than preserving our planet (not to mention keeping the oil and car companies happy).

[kestrel91316]

35. I'm starting to think it might just be TOO LATE to do a damned thing

about global warming.

The Titanic is starting to scrape the iceberg. Train wreck coming.

[NNadir]

36. DUer's report the wires are literally melting in San Diego:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=1706156&mesg_id=1706156

[mitchtv]

37. Record 121 today -Palm Springs

it was 100 at midnight this am

[kestrel91316]

39. 9 PM - 100 on my front porch. 105 official Van Nuys temp. It's after dark.

This is getting frightening. They say the forecast for tomorrow is 103, but if it doesn't cool off some, we could be in for another day like today. I am really afraid what might happen if the power goes off due to the overload...........

My AC has been running pretty much continually for 10-11 hours.

[Maat]

40. It was 106 yesterday in Murrieta ..

at least that's what my thermometer said. Our electricity bill reached several hundred dollars (just under $1,000) (that's right - we work out of the house).

Many in the area are suffering.

[Pierzin]

41. 97 in Seattle this week, a record for here

but not as bad as some of you have seen elsewhere.
I spent part of the night in my bathtub, cause no air conditioning! Hot hot hot. My apartment felt like an oven coming back from the night out last night. Sympathies to you all who have it worse!

[kestrel91316]

42. Link, finally:

http://dailynews.com/ci_4084444

[kestrel91316]

43. This link says it was the highest temperature EVER recorded anywhere

within the County of Los Angeles, on ANY day, in ANY year. EVER!

Link: http://blogging.la/archives/2006/07/public_information_notice_its.phtml

What a dubious distinction. And the weather recording station sits at Pierce College, less than a mile from my office.

[Pooka Fey]

44. That's why I was so shocked.

This more than any other news; more than the heat waves in Western Europe, more than olive trees in London, more than East Coast blackouts, more than 118 in Phoenix. This unheard of temperature in Woodland Hills has signaled to me that we are living in a new paradigm. I grew up in Agoura and lived in the SF Valley as an adult until '91. A brutal hot day in LA in my experience was 103, which we would experience for maybe 2-3 days some summers. I drove from '78 to '91 with no A/C in my car and I really never minded.

It is no longer about Global Warming "may be coming sometime later blah blah blah". It's here and it's ugly. It will be amusing or pitiful, (depending on your BS tolerance) to watch the political leadership either ignore this or try to bury it under layers and layers of meaningless verbal drivel.

Sorry about your tomatoes. One trick I read about on an AZ master gardener's website (only works with containers) is to put your clay containers in a bigger clay container lined with peat moss. You soak the peat moss during the day, and as the water evaporates, it cools the roots of the plants in the smaller container which will keep the plant alive when the heat is ridiculous like this. You also want to elevate them off the hot concrete or pavement, and you can buy sunshade material with which to tent the plants during the hottest part of the day. I learned about these techniques after I lost an entire container garden - probably 15 pots representing a couple hundred dollars in plants - during one spell of 3-4 114 degree days here in Phoenix. My garden was just nuked by the heat, except for the cacti. I figured out that roses aren't a good choice in this region :-( (at least once May arrives, my roses were gorgeous in March).

I don't know how to save plants in the ground - maybe some variation of that peat moss technique. We'll have to start figuring all this out if we want to eat in the future, I'll wager.

[kestrel91316]

46. I mulch my tomatoes heavily, but the biggest problem is, no matter

what you do to protect them, when it gets over 100 or so they quit producing, and the Fusarium wilt gets 'em.

The good thing is, prime farm land by the sea (with normal temps) is not far away in Camarillo/Oxnard, as you know. I guess I will grow the okra and butternut squash and New Zealand spinach, and they can grow the more delicate stuff. Local farmes markets are thriving here. I go up to Goleta (Santa Barbara) on weekends a lot, and they grow great lemons and avocados right there. DBF's workplace has a huge avocado tree, he just picks them for free. And I have a lemon and a Kadots fig in my yard.

I just think food is going to get REALLY expensive in the future. Maybe the fat people that plague this country will finally lose weight?

BTW, I lived in Agoura 1985-1989. Loved it. 10 degrees cooler than the valley most the time!

[momzno1]

48. what an ignorant comment.

Fat People Plague this Country????
Your ignorance is showing
but
Maybe the Republicans will latch onto that in the future. Fat People are the cause of all ills in this world including global warming -

[kestrel91316]

49. I am referencing the well-known EPIDEMIC of obesity in the US.

Too bad if you have a problem with the terminology. It's not mine.

[Boomer]

50. "Obesity" is the plague, not the people

The syntax of your statement implied that obese people themselves are a plague on this country, which is a bit harsh. I'd prefer to reframe that issue: "obesity" is the problem that plagues people. :)

[momzno1]

52. much better

thanks.
I stand behind my earlier objection to the post stating "fat people plague" this country.
If he cannot see, I am not surprised

[kestrel91316]

58. Welll excuuuuse me for being muddle-headed in 119 degree heat.

You try clear thinking under the circumstances sometime. you won't do any better. I spent the whole weekend dehydrated.

[hatrack]

45. "WH"? - Sorry, geographically clueless

:hi:

[NNadir]

47. I think it means "Woodland Hills."

[Pooka Fey]

53. Yes.

And SF Valley is the San Fernando valley (just because I abbreviated it in an earlier post forgetting about all my East coast DU friends).

[hatrack]

54. Sorry, if I'd bothered to read rather than post reflexively . . .

All would have been made clear!

Stay cool, ya'll!!

[Pooka Fey]

55. All is well as long as the electricity and the A/C stay on

Which leaves us in not the most secure of situations for the long-term. Thanks for the good wishes. :hi:

[Systematic Chaos]

56. Vegas has been cool so far, compared to LAST year!

We had a week last summer where every day it was 116+ and three days in a row were 119. So far, I think we've topped 110 only a couple days, and the forecast has the highs safely under 110 through the week. 119 in LA? Man, no matter how hard I try I just can't imagine that. :(