Get ready for something electric

WEATHER TIDBITS

How much different is it this summer than the past four? Like night

and day.

I guess we could do something like compare this July’s stats with

the average stats the four previous years.

Laguna’s average maximum temperature for July 2003 up to the 21st

has been 82.6 degrees. For the period July 1 to July 22 between 1999

and 2002, it was 75.8 degrees, compared to a norm of 77.1 degrees.

Our minimum temps during predawn hours has been a very balmy 66.9

degrees, almost 6 degrees warmer than 1999 to 2002 when it averaged

an almost chilly 61 degrees.

Now we get to the surface ocean temperatures. We’re laughing this

time around; how’s 71.7 degrees so far, compared to 66.2 for 1999 to

2002?

Last week it hit 74 degrees here and 76 degrees one day just down

the road in San Clemente.

Now, it’s Monday, July 21 and yet another surge of tropical

moisture is invading the midday skies with thick bands of altocumulus

streaming in from the east and southeast, something we haven’t seen

much of since July and August of 1998.

The ocean temperature at Rockpile at 10:30 a.m. today is 74

degrees.

We’ve had more 80 degree temps and higher this July than the

previous four entire summers total.

Plus the winds; the westerlies have dominated our summer weather

pattern since 1999.

However this summer, it’s all about the south and southeast winds,

which pile all that warm water up against our coast.

The westerlies bring up the colder water from underneath, as we

couldn’t buy a 70 degree day in the water from 1999 through 2002.

We’ve had more 70 degree plus days this month than the last four

years total.

The humidity has been 20% higher this month due to all that

wonderful tropical influence. It was 78% at noon today and with the

air at 80 degrees; the dew point is a sultry 71 degrees. That is

extra fuel for producing thunderstorms.

My feeling is we’re going to have an impressive electrical storm

sometime between now and Labor Day.

It’s been quite some time since we’ve had a rockin’ sockin’ summer

storm -- July 26, 1996 to be exact. Other impressive (they’re rare)

storms, according to Tidbitter’s records, have been Aug. 15, 1958

when the skies lighted up for three hours from 2 to 5 a.m. with an

inch of rain.

There was July 20, 1960, when a large cell parked over our hills

and sent hot blasts of offshore winds with lightning, sending the

temperature to 100 degrees at 2 p.m.

There was Aug. 9, 1965, Sept. 2, 1967, June and August 1972,

August 1983, July 16, 1995 and of course July 26, 1996.

The most spectacular thunderstorm your Tidbitter has ever

witnessed in Laguna, though, was after summer. It went on for 17

hours on Sept. 30 and Oct. 1, 1981. Several super cells parked over

Laguna and the rest of the south county and just went off.

A few of the groms and I were talking about weather and surf in

between sessions at Thalia reef last week. There was an out-of-season

northwest groundswell firing at Thalia with 3- to 5-foot clean

right-handers. Anyhow, one of the groms says, “Hey Dennis, I guess

the water temperature is gonna take a plunge because it’s a northwest

swell, huh?”

Well, just to enlighten those young inquiring minds -- swells have

nothing to do with water temps. It’s all currents and local winds. I

told them you can have 74 degree water with a northwest swell and 55

degree water with a south swell. Happens all the time.

It’s all about the winds -- the southerlies are our friend, the

westerlies are the enemy.

Stay tuned.

* DENNIS McTIGHE is a Laguna Beach resident. He earned a

bachelor’s in earth sciences from UCSD and was a U.S. Air Force

weather forecaster at Hickman Air Force Base, Hawaii.