“Global Warming” – Here in Van Nuys

Let us pick one day off the calendar and compare the weather in Los Angeles on September 6^th 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 6^th: 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:

The care, the compassion, the concern; the love, the affection, the authentic empathy for the automobile knows no bounds in Los Angeles. For here, the health and well-being of the car is of utmost concern to every red-blooded man, woman and child.

In our city, a neglected, dirty, abused, uncared for car is truly a moral crime, something that our citizens would not tolerate.

Since the car emigrated to Los Angeles, from France and Germany, early in the 20th Century, it has found a home here. The sincere regard for all wandering vehicles has produced an outpouring of health care for all cars unrivaled by any civilized nation. All races, creeds, religions, every poor and rich person, regards the vehicle as Their Supreme God.

And in every district of Los Angeles, outside of every school, restaurant, home, and hospital, the car is thought of first. Its needs are regarded before any triviality which might impede the happiness of the car. Even when there are empty factories, abandoned malls, the car retains its parking lots. Even roads falling down, streets pockmarked by potholes, they are allowed to carry the car, because the supremacy of the auto goes before any other infrastructure needs.

When crazy buildings to house people are proposed by cowardly developers, the first question at community meetings is always the holiest and most sacred one:

“Where will they park?”

No car ever goes without fuel, no car is ever without a parent looking after it, all precious water from our aqueducts is used to baptize and cleanse the car so that it can go on as the King of Los Angeles. Every drop of air we breathe, every sound we hear, every place we want to go, our car must come first.

Let the icebergs melt, let the polar bears and penguins die off, let 117 degrees become the new normal in Los Angeles, our car must continue to be our primary mode of life and liberty.

We know no other way. We will accept nothing less.

Following are some vintage car wash photos from the files of the LAPL: