Oxnard Heats Up to 89, Setting Record

Ventura County’s heat wave pushed Oxnard’s mercury into uncharted territory Wednesday, surpassing a temperature record set 24 years ago.

Oxnard’s high of 89 was six degrees warmer than the previous high for May 28, which was set in 1973.

As usual, the inland areas of Fillmore and Piru turned in the county’s highest temperatures at 97 degrees, Simi Valley topped out at 94, and the mercury in Ojai reached 92, said meteorologist Kent Field of the county Air Pollution Control District.

Sizzling right along with Thousand Oaks’ high of 93 was Steve Longbine of Newbury Park Meat Market, who as a barbecue cook didn’t have much choice.

Business was off 25%, proving perhaps that there can be too much barbecue weather. But Longbine wasn’t exactly slaving over a hot grill all day.

“I cook it all in the morning when it’s a lot cooler,” he said, standing next to hot trays of grilled beef tri-tip and barbecued chicken that he didn’t intend to indulge in. “At times like this, I like a nice salad.”

Still, even early morning temperatures were warm.

Inland areas were already between 74 and 76 degrees at sunup, usually the coolest part of the day. Even on the coast, where early morning temperatures normally dip into the upper 50s, lows reached only 63.

Today’s temperatures could even be one or two degrees hotter, according to meteorologists, although a gradual cooling trend is expected through the weekend. After a weekend respite, however, it’s possible the scorching heat will return early next week, Field said.

The recent warm weather has been accompanied by generally good air quality. Simi Valley, usually the county’s murkiest spot, boasted 30-mile visibility Wednesday, according to Field.

“With it being so hot, we’ve blown off the lid so to speak,” he said, noting that the heat simply erodes any inversion layer that would form and lead to smoggy skies.

Southern California Edison registered its highest power consumption levels of the year Wednesday afternoon because of the hot weather.

Extra use of air-conditioning, fans and other equipment by the 11 million people it serves helped push demand to a peak of 16,794 megawatts at 4 p.m., said spokesman Tom Boyd. A megawatt is enough power to serve between 500 and 1,000 homes. The company’s all-time peak demand was 18,413 megawatts on Aug. 18, 1993.

The company did not know whether the excessive demand could be blamed for two power outages in Thousand Oaks. The first, which began about 4:45 p.m., affected about 290 customers mainly from the 2600 to 3100 block of Townsgate Road in the Westlake area of Thousand Oaks. By 6:45 p.m., all but 20 of those customers had their power restored and the remainder were expected to have power by morning.

A much larger outage, which initially involved 3,200 customers began at 5:40 p.m.

A bad cable between two transformers left about 1,600 of those customers without power for nearly four hours in an area roughly bounded by Witherspoon Drive on the north, Erbes Road on the east, Avenida de los Arboles on the south and Moorpark Road on the west, according to Boyd, who predicted all power would be restored by 11 p.m.