The North Coast is no stranger to late summer heat. A heat advisory has been issued by the national weather service for interior Del Norte and Humboldt counties through Thursday night.
Ryan Aylward, a meteorologist at the NOAA, told Redwood News, “Right now, the interior is expected to reach over 100 degrees for the next couple of days, and so the heat advisory will run through tomorrow evening.” It’s not just the hottest temperatures of the day that can be dangerous, though. “The high temperatures can be impactful,” Aylward cautions, “but it really is an issue when the low temperatures also don’t cool down enough. What typically happens if you go outside and you have to deal with the heat all day long and you don’t have a chance for your body to really cool down at night if you’re actually exposed to the elements you know, throughout the day, that can really bad for your health…
And so when we have those situations, we can issue heat advisories and excessive heat warnings when it’s really, really anomalously hot.”
Heat advisories are issued when the heat may impact human activities, especially outdoors.
Aylward says you can still enjoy the outdoors, however he adds “You just have to be prepared, you know, have the right clothes that you’re going to be wearing, try to have a hat on or something that’s going to keep the sun out of your face,” he suggests. “Try not to hike in places that are really exposed to the sun.”
Ryan also suggests doing outdoor activities in the early morning or evening times, when the temperatures are not at their hottest for the day. “If you are going to be out in the elements doing anything it doesn’t matter what it is. make sure you drink lots of water, take breaks, rest as much as possible. And then if you can if it’s possible move the activity outside of the worst times of the day.
“In our area, especially on the coast, we often get our warmest temperatures in September and October,” Aylward continues, “because the atmosphere set up that typically occurs at this time of year allows for some light offshore wind. east winds bring the dry, continental air to the coast. so, yeah, that’s why typically it happens out here at the coast have the warmest temperatures interior, it’s more in the summer.”
87 is the hottest temperature ever recorded in Eureka. That temperature was recorded in September 2020, September 2017, and October 1997. This summer, record temperatures were hit in many interior locations on July 6, 2024.
