Let us pick one day off the calendar and compare the weather in Los Angeles on September 6th for every ten years since 1950.
It’s hot today, (nearly 100 in Van Nuys) and we’ve had days in the last week when it was 106, 110, 113 and only dropped below 90 well after midnight. All of the western US is under a heat dome, and even San Francisco is sweltering at 91F at 2pm.
Los Angeles weather readings were taken at LAX (thank you Orca), which is different than what it might be in Marina Del Rey, Woodland Hills or Van Nuys.
I perceive that Los Angeles is a hotter and more humid city than it was before. And the old “dry heat” is disappearing as the Pacific Ocean heats up and the cooling effect of that once frigid body of water dissipates and weakens.
I came here in 1994 and the air was dirtier but there was a certain monotonous regularity to the weather, dependably hot in the Valley in the summer, and dry and windy and then rainy in the winter. It was still hot in September or October.
But not this hot..
I found some weather charts for comparison on Weatherspark. You can look up any day of the year historical weather here. I pulled up LAX temperature graphs from Septemeber 6th: 1950, 1960, 1970, 1980, 1980, 1990, 2000, 2010 and 2020.
If I’m reading them correctly things were quite pleasant for almost every decade until 2010.
9/6/70: high 81, low 61
9/6/80: high 72, low 62
In 2020, we knew we lived in hell.
Now we need to get out of hell.
But how?
POSTSCRIPT:
Reader Orca pointed out to me that the charts above were taken at LAX not downtown.
I apologize for that mistake.
Here are temperature readings taken at Burbank Airport from September 6th every decade except 1980:
Here in Van Nuys 
I understand you’re a story-teller, and not a weather scientist (which I why I read you), but just…..no. First off, that data set is LAX, not downtown LA. Ignorants from across the land are “shocked” to find temps well over 100 in early September, but that is NORMAL here. Historically the hottest two weeks of the year are the last week in August and the first week of September. September is a full degree hotter on average than July.
If you wish to delve further—– https://www.wrh.noaa.gov/climate/temp_graphs.php?stn=KCQT&p=temperature&mon=7&wfo=lox&year=2022
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Thanks for the comment. I will look into that link. My assumption (false?) was based on not doing enough fact checking into that. If they do use LAX as the official temperature, they are using something which 99% of the people don’t experience in our region.
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No need for apologies. Weatherspark appears to just take NWS data and tart it up so it looks real sciency. Like Nextshark and a host of others. As a VERY rough general rule – in Summer, if you’re on flat ground in the LA Basin, every mile and a half or so you go inland increases the temp about 1 degree. 76 on Third Street Santa Monica = 85 or so Downtown. As you know Santa Monica Mountains turns the dial on that relationship to 11. 72 on the sand in Venice = 76 on Third Street and sometimes 100 in VN.
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