-from last week
A wundeground station closed to my house had highs over 102 for 13 of the first 25 days in July. The rest of July was over 87 until 7/27 when high was 79. (The only other July day under 87 so far was 85 on 7/29). I’ve logged previous 6-day streaks over 100 from that weather station including late Sept into Oct 2010, mid-Aug 2020 and early Sept 2022, but they never included so many hot days after the 6 days of 100. On July 3, when nearby station got to 110, we stopped in 105* Auburn on our way to North San Juan, and our weather station went over 100 by 10:30. From North San Juan we left early to spend the 4th at 6200' elevation Packer Lake where it was cooler. My friend whose 20 acres outside North San Juan are on top of a hill at 2500' said he's used to the highs, but not used to 90 degrees or more late into the evening.
San Jose average temps used to be 81/55 in Summer months and are now 84/59 and 84/60 for July and August, respectively, according to weather.com. But those temps are taken ~10 miles N/NW of my neighborhood, much closer to SF Bay. Where my Mom lives, 6 miles away from me, close to the Coyote Creek, in Edenvale area of San Jose. and Morgan Hill, 8 miles S of there and a place where it gets hot a breeze blows down the valley that my part of San Jose (Evergreen), Almaden (another warm part of San Jose) and Los Gatos (another warm place where I grew up, closer to Santa Cruz with now $2.7M average home sale price) do not get.
On July 11, I left my neighborhood where it got 108 in the afternoon and went for bike ride in Santa Cruz where it was 73. I stopped to visit friend in Capitola and had to return to my vehicle to get sweatshirt before 5 PM. I spent night at another friend’s place in nearby Rio del Mar/Aptos. He had to go to work early while I took a longer ride into the Forest of Nisene Marks, a state park that includes the epicenter of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and it was in the 60s when I finished before 11 AM due to shade from many big trees and fog. After bringing lunch to my Mom, I returned home where it was over 100. SkiTracks is only for the downhill - the uphill took a little longer.
We have air conditioning, added during major remodel 16 years ago, but only ran it a few hours last Summer. Our house was built 50 years ago and will handle one 100 degree day without running air. During more usual Summer weather, house will get into the high 70s upstairs, then when it cools off we pull cooler air in and exhaust the warm air getting upstairs into low 70s before we go to bed. That does not work when temps are in the 80s until after 9 or when we have multiple days in a row over 100. Our most recent electricity bill was our highest ever in the Summer and our next one will be a little higher. I hope we don’t begin to need to regularly run air conditioning in the evening.
My family’s Tahoe cabin would not have been much of a respite from the heat as July highs were 88-90 from 7/5-12 and lows only got down to 50 two nights and 58 on one. The Lake had second highest water temperature ever recorded.
Lake Tahoe sees second-highest surface temp in 25 years amid California heat wave - CBS Sacramento (cbsnews.com)Since it finally cooled down late last week, I went to Tahoe Thur-Mon to trim tree branches that Tahoe Fire said were too close to cabin. I hit traffic getting out of Bay Area even though I left home at 1:45 and barely had time to put groceries in fridge at cabin and get to music.
I left sweatshirt at cabin and by 9 PM accepted blanket from friend who lives @6600' at So. Tahoe and runs air conditioner a lot. Band does great covers of Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Fleetwood Mac (guitarist's Mother sings like Stevie Nicks), Santana and The Eagles. May go back to see them again in two weeks.
I got out for two bike rides, the first beginning and ending near where Heavenly Valley Creek crosses Pioneer Trail. I did not start SkiTracks until partway up the hill. It was windy and I saw high of 70.
The next day I rode from cabin towards then under Heavenly’s gondola again not starting SkiTracks until I was pushing bike up trail steeper than I can comfortably ride in thin air above 6K. Gondola visible in middle of photo.
I rode to Nevada Beach where cars were parked along entrance road all the way to US-50 and they were not letting anyone enter with Parking Full signs even though I saw many empty spaces on my ride.Sunday afternoon. Nevada Beach lakefront part of beach was a lot wider two years ago with lower Lake level.
Later, I drove to just past Camp Richardson, parked along CA-89 and walked to Valhalla for free Boots Juice lawn concert.
On Monday morning, I filled one more can I'd borrowed from a neighbor, cleaned cabin, then after garbage was picked up, I returned borrowed cans and refilled two of ours. This was before I put out can with garbage from borrowed neighbor's can and mine. Bear got into neighbor's can who put it out the night before. Nephew and I did most of our trimming on big tree behind chimney. They want all dead branches and any within 10-15' of structure removed.
I left before 11 and returned home past Caples Lake and Kirkwood. Snow left of center is below The Wave cornice/run on Kirkwood's backside.
Both mornings since I’ve been home, we’ve had fog in AM and lows in upper 50s, highs in the 80s and early cooling in evenings. I like and could get used to that, but it got to 92 at my house and closer to 93 at nearby wundeground station and is supposed to be warm through Sat. Still cool inside.
