104 degrees in May: Sacramento sets more records amid Northern California heat wave
Northern California’s ongoing heat wave broke more records Tuesday, as the Sacramento area braces for more triple-digit weather.
Downtown Sacramento reached 104 degrees Tuesday afternoon and Sacramento Executive Airport was recorded at 103, each of which surpassed previous all-time highs for May 26 by 2 degrees, according to the National Weather Service. A high of 105 degrees at Stockton Airport shattered the previous record of 101. All three of those daily records had stood since the 1970s.
Monday’s high of 100 degrees downtown at the capital tied an all-time high for the date that was set almost 70 years ago, in 1951.
An excessive heat warning continues this week for the Sacramento Valley, with the capital forecast to hit 104 degrees again Wednesday afternoon and 102 Thursday, before Friday and the weekend bring relief. Temperatures should calm to the low 90s Friday, then the low 80s by Saturday through Monday, the latest NWS forecasts show.
A high of 104 on Wednesday would blow past the previous daily record of 100 degrees at Sacramento Executive Airport, set in 1984. The record for downtown is 104 degrees.
This week’s heat wave represents a sweltering 20-degree spike above the historical average for late May. The hottest May day on record for Sacramento Executive Airport hit 105 degrees. That happened May 28, 1984.
The weather presents a stark contrast from the same time frame last year, when temperatures were well below-average. Sacramento hit a high of just 61 degrees on May 26, 2019, an astounding 42-degree difference from Tuesday’s scorcher, the local NWS office pointed out in an infographic.
Temperatures are even hot this week in South Lake Tahoe, which according to the National Weather Service is forecast to peak near 86 degrees Thursday.
South Lake Tahoe and the Tahoe basin in El Dorado County, though, remain off-limits to visitors who do not own property there due to coronavirus-related travel restrictions.
This story was originally published May 27, 2020 at 9:11 AM.
