Southern California's summer to end with a chill: It was the coldest in decades

Farewell summer, we hardly knew ye!

The last day of summer is Wednesday, but meteorologists say the season barely bothered to show up in the region this year. So cooler fall will make an almost noiseless entrance Thursday, hardly indistinguishable from the summer Southern Californians just experienced.

“Summer played hooky on us. It never really showed up,” said Bill Patzert, a climatologist for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Canada Flintridge. “We leaped from spring to fall.”

Patzert said a low-pressure trough that stalled along the West Coast from Alaska to southern Baja California kept the summer cooler than usual, with many overcast days. Monthly temperatures in downtown Los Angeles from April to now have averaged between one to three degrees cooler than normal.

Patzert said it’s one of the coolest summers in decades.

Jamie Meier, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Oxnard, said that LAX tied the coldest average temperature for August on record, going back to 1944. 

The Santa Barbara airport also broke a record for coolest August, she said. The weather service is predicting a La Nina cycle that could mean drier-than-normal conditions. That isn’t always the case during La Nina, said Meier. But more often than not it is, she said.

Thoughout the summer, communities across Southern California set record low temperatures, notably Los Angeles International Airport and other coastal areas.

-- Hector Becerra

Photo: Children play in San Bernardino County. Credit: Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[Chuck]

I like how people on here try to re-brand Global Warming to Climate Change when things don't go their way. They will try to keep the climate Fear alive at all cost!!!

[Andy]

50 miles inland from LA it was sunny every bleeping day and hot ENOUGH this summer. There was just more days then usual where the ocean influenced the weather on the coastal cities.

[John]

I moved to San Clemente a year ago to enjoy the beach life and got FROZEN this summer! So funny seeing everyone next to the beach running around in thick pants and sweatshirts in the middle of August.

So nice to the see Al Gore's cheerleaders pointing out that ANY change in climatic activity is somehow irrefutable proof of global warming. Lame.

Answer me this "New Science" experts: How come when the Martian ice caps get smaller Earth gets warmer? How come when the Martian ice caps get bigger the Earth gets cooler? If man made global warming were real wouldn't the earth get warmer even when the Mars gets cooler and packs on thicker ice caps? You little genius' do know what an independent variable is right? Far be it from me to point out the obvious, but I just love it when the "New Science" people try to dispute such simple facts.

[Truth Serum]

These "Global Warming/Climate Change" alarmists are quite funny actually. They encourage others to study the science yet don't understand it themselves. The truth is, we are coming out of an ice age now. The earth is truly getting warmer, by design. When we enter another ice cycle, the world will get cooler.

[Rick]

This is NOT the warmest summer on record. So, that's lie #1. Atmospheric concentrations of CO2 lag NOT LEAD temperature increase. As the oceans warm (solar cycles, maybe?) CO2, the raw material of "reef builders" comes out of solution. So, this is lie #2 of AGW. Just like CFCs did not create the ozone hole (the size of the ozone hole is driven by cold temperatures in Antartica - Ref: NASA) CO2 does not warm the planet, the sun does. Yes, we need more science and and less communist propaganda and the simplistic jingles and slogans we get from the left and their stupid, ignorant, "gurus" like Gore and Hansen.

[Todd]

When a few years ago Al Gore wrote that "women wearing bikinis in Boston in April" was a sign of global warming, funny how no one corrected him. "No, no, Al -- isolated local temperature phenomena have nothing to do with global climate change."

When it's unusually hot, it's a sign the globe's warming. When it's unusually cold, it's not a sign that the globe isn't warming. No matter the weather outside, it fits the "climate change" model. What a racket.

[theLedger]

Actually, CO2 is only a small fractional part of the weather system. Clouds and precipitation have a much bigger impact. The science on this is not settled as the computer models suggest because what we are truly measuring does not account for the suggested warming.

In 1990 the NOAA began to systematically shut down temperature measuring stations in cooler regions of the world. They went from 6,000 stations to fewer than 1,500. Many of the higher altitude, higher latitude, and coastal stations were eliminated leaving most of the measuring stations closer to urban areas.

If you look at the data, global warming averages jumped when those stations where shut down because now the bias was towards warmer measuring stations. Urban centers have their built-in bias because as populations grow, their temperatures rise.

These and other factors explain why land warming has been growing at a faster rate than ocean warming. Computer models cannot account for this huge loss in measurement stations which is why the hard data on the ground often disagrees with the models.

[Bruno]

I hope everyone who insists on global warming/climate change/climate disruption (isn't it always disrupted??)
checks out Senator Imhofe's site (gvt site) and read all PDF's through and through and then makes a INFORMED decision.
Global Disruption/Scam is not a consensues as mainsteam media wouyld have you believe. For as many believe, just as many do not. When we stop attaching $, funding, to science that only propels the myth/idea of GW, and stop funding of those who have lied intentionally (that is not fact based science, ex: "hide the decline", maybe we will consider things. Links provided so one can see-p and John Colemans video (from CA tv station) is good to get lingo geared to non science people.
Click on the link to view Sen Imhofe's senate site (a gvt site-I am sure he couldn't place non truths there) and view ALL 4 reports in blue. One has a step by step showing you what was claimed in the IPCC 4th report and what is flawed.
Emails also shown from deceptive scientists. Wake up America before we are scammed yet again. Enough! Renaming doesn't change the deception.
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Issues.View&Issue_id=0f038c02-802a-23ad-4fec-b8bc71f1a6f8

Thanks for running when temps are low- we have had record cold temps in Chicago and no one knows!

[Teddy]

All You Climate skeptics here in California, Its here !!! Climate change. Get use to it, it wont go away. Only it will worsen no matter where or what we do because of skeptics that support institutions that accelerate carbon and pollution. Thanks for the good days ahead.

[Gamal al Fuqwad]

It's a local matter, I, uh, have no comment

[d.]

Last year, Colorado went from summer to winter and missed fall altogether. All the zero population groups were trying to get people to stop buying winter clothing, and you have to wonder why. Houston had a cool non-summer season. Amazon had a frost that killed a lot of animals as well. Maybe 10kilowatt per month Al Gore shut off some of those big lights around his honking big house?

There won't be any universal change. Climate change is distributed unevenly, just like scientific illiteracy.

[dhwj]

You have to love our "Warmists".

Regional cooling has nothing to do with "global warming" 00ps, "climate change".

This year New England had its coldest winter in a long time and now the west coast has a very cool summer.

Hmmm, doesn't prolonged weather have something to do with climate???

[Skeptic]

Interesting how people desire to take facts and manipulate them into a storyline to suit their agenda. To those of you touting the need for more education on this issue, you might benefit from a little education yourself. You would then find out that the so called "experts" on climate science can't explain temperature fluctuations. Why do people want to jump to political solutions to perceived problems that cannot be explained?

[Obama Czar]

Note to staff:

Forget previous memo about "Global Climate Disruption."

From this point on, Global Cooling means Global Warming.

Don't worry, our shills in the media will try to sell whatever we tell them.

[Jeff T.]

@d.

By "Houston had a cool non-summer season" I assume you meant Houston had a colder than normal "winter" last year. This was definitely true. It snowed twice and there was about a 2 week period where the tempurature never got out of the 40s and 50s (very unusual for here).

Summer has been hot, but not unusually so. In fact, it took longer than normal for Houston to register its first +100 degree day.

[spawn44]

No, Just because Southern California was cooler this year does not mean there is no global warming. Global warming is global, that means it covers all the area's where no one lives and we can cook the temperture data and no one will be the wiser. Right

[ejdavid]

YIKES!!!

Its Colder. Its Warmer. Polar Bears are going going gone. "There aren't just a few more bears. There are a hell of a lot more bears..." Warming would be good anyway since Canda could grow more wheat. Warming would be bad because of desertification.

IT WAS WARMER IN ROMAN TIMES. Britain exported wine to France, and North Africa was the wheat bread basket of the Roman Empire.

Double Bubble Toil And Trouble.

[ejdavid]

The Sky Has Arisen From The Dead - Chicken Little

[Todd]

I remember a poll where interviewees were asked that if George Bush had been behind global warming instead of Al Gore, would that affect their opinion?

The answer was somewhere over 70% saying yes, it would have affected their opinion of this 'science'.

[Bob White]

Then there is this 7 month forecast based on the el and Nino la Nina oceanic oscillation histories.
http://joannenova.com.au/2010/08/is-the-cold-weather-coming/#more-9776

[Webin Jones]

http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-cooling.htm don't take anyone's opinions - do your own research and read all of the contradictions from both sides - I personally believe that there is not enough data to prove warming or cooling to be a "provable" fact that we should be concerned with at this time.

Do your part as a responsible human on this planet and leave behind the smallest foot print possible - but at the same time live a normal life.

Just like religion - you may not believe - but you should still live your life as if you hope to be judged in the end by someone who matters to you.

[Lee]

That darned global warming! Ah, I mean human induced weather change, ah global cooling? Ah, man caused global effects of burning hydrocarbons?

Like the old saying goes, if you don't like the weather wait a while and it will change. Also, there is a sucker born every minute. And there is another born who will try and take advantage of them. Right Mr. Gore?

[Lee]

Just what makes you climate change pushers think you can control the weather and cause it to be "normal"? Normal to you is what it happened to be like while you have been on the planet the short amount of time that you have. The planet has gone from hot house to snow ball more than once and we could not have prevented it's course change in either direction if we had been here. And we weren't here, which also means we didn't cause it! Are you beginning to catch on? I doubt it. Your either a true believer or are making money from the propaganda, right Mr. Gore?

[meezer]

So much for "Global Warming". Oh that's right, they're calling it something different since the "warming thing" hasn't worked out. Either way, they'll call it whatever they need to call it to tax the bejeezus out of us and take our money.

[Mab Rockwell]

How many times must I explain to people like Robert that their is no such thing
as global warming, or "climate change".... I have lived long enough to know
this is true. It's hot, it's cold and it is inbetween...So just enjoy the weather, guys.