SAN DIEGO COUNTY, Calif. — If you thought it was hotter than usual in San Diego County this year, you would be right. It was a year of back-to-back-to-back heat waves in the summer lasting into the fall with record highs across the county.
News 8 spoke with Alex Tardy from the National Weather Service to see how hot 2020 is shaping up to be.
"For the entire county, at least half the county could be the warmest on record," said Tardy.
As the lead Meteorologist at the NWS, Tardy said Anza Borrego, Palomar Mountain and Escondido should break records.
"So, we can easily say it's not just the deserts," said Tardy. "It's not just the mountains. It's the inland valleys that are on pace to be the warmest calendar year on record."
Downtown San Diego won't break the record, but it should be 5th or 6th warmest.
"Downtown San Diego will have most of the top ten in the past 10 years," said Tardy.
There was an exception in 1984, with 2014 being the warmest.
"Summer in Southern California is not just July and August," said Tardy. "We had 14 different heat waves May through October."
September was the peak.
"[It was] Labor Day weekend where temperatures were all-time highs, [with] Escondido [at] 115 degrees. Alpine [at] 113 degrees -- all-time high," said Tardy.
Part of what is causing this is the west has been in a drought and dry land warms faster.
"It's starting to warm our oceans and the ocean warms our land," said Tardy.
Our overnight cooling sea breeze isn't there, so then we start out warm in the morning and things aren't changing.
"We're seeing the same weather pattern so that means every year we enter into summer we're at the same or even hotter," said Tardy.
The weather fluctuates and changes, but is this a cycle or a trend?
"Nothing that we're seeing in the data suggests that this is a short cycle of 10 years," said Tardy. "It suggests we're going to continue in a trend of slow warming."