Bay Area Sees Hottest July On Record

SAN FRANCISCO — A series of heat waves helped propel the Bay Area to its hottest July on record, and more unseasonable warmth is on the horizon, according to the National Weather Service.

Forecasters with the weather service's Bay Area office shared a long list of weather stations across the region that reported their warmest average July temperature, including one record that was set more than a century ago.

In Napa Valley, a weather station in Calistoga recorded an average temperature of 80.7 degrees in July, a figure considerably above the normal of 72.6 degrees and just over the old record of 80.6 degrees set in 1917.

Sonoma, Graton and San Rafael bested July heat records set in the 1980s, while Santa Rosa cleared a record set just last year by a full 2 degrees.

The local records follow similar trends in many parts of the globe. Last month, researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the global surface temperature in June was 2.2 degrees above the 20th-century average, marking the 13th consecutive month of record-high global temperatures.

In the Bay Area, the weather service is tracking another stretch of heat expected to begin Friday. While forecasters do not expect the temperatures to soar quite as high as other recent heat waves, it will still be unseasonably hot for many.

"The magnitude of the heat will not be as impactful with temperatures about 4-8 degrees above normal," NWS Bay Area wrote Thursday. "However, this will last for several days, which will put some inland areas under moderate HeatRisk early next week given the cumulative effect."

New climate outlooks show hotter temperatures may linger beyond the first week of August, but there are some signals that some rain could materialize and help quell some of the wildfires raging across the West.