Millions in California Advised to Avoid the Sun
Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content.
An early-season heat wave is sweeping through Southern and Central California, prompting warnings for millions of residents to limit sun exposure and avoid strenuous activity outdoors. Temperatures are forecast to rise higher than 100 degrees in some areas, with little relief overnight, according to the National Weather Service (NWS).
Why It Matters
The agency issued a heat advisory through 9 p.m. PT Saturday for the Los Angeles and Ventura County valleys, the Santa Monica Mountains, and the southern Salinas Valley, among other locations. Officials are warning of a high risk of heat illness, especially for the elderly, young children, people without air conditioning, and those working or exercising outdoors.
The heat advisories extend from Santa Ynez southeast through the French Valley, encompassing more than 8 million Californians. This week's heat wave comes after a period of below-average temperatures, meaning that the rising temperatures might feel particularly warm.
What to Know
Daytime highs between 88 and 100 degrees are expected Friday and Saturday, with temperatures dropping only slightly overnight. On Sunday, highs will hover in the upper 80s to low 90s, still above average for this time of year. The heat advisory is in place until 9 p.m. local time Saturday night.
The sun rises in Los Angeles.
The sun rises in Los Angeles.
johnemac72/Getty
"That is significantly warmer than typical for this time of year," NWS meteorologist Rose Schoenfeld told Newsweek.
Temperatures are usually in the 70s and 80s for the time of year.
The NWS office in Los Angeles called it a "mini heat wave," adding in a social media post that it would be the "hottest of the year" so far. The advisory warned of "moderate" to "high" risk for heat illness in vulnerable populations, particularly those without air conditioning or living in urban areas with limited tree cover or ventilation.
Officials urged residents to:
Avoid sun exposure by staying indoors during peak hours (10 a.m. to 6 p.m.)
Wear lightweight, loose-fitting clothing
Drink water frequently
Double-check for children or pets before leaving your vehicle
In agricultural regions like the Salinas Valley, employers are reminded by OSHA to provide shaded rest breaks and water to outdoor workers.
The advisory explicitly warns, "Heat stroke is an emergency! Call 9 1 1."
What People Are Saying
Schoenfeld told Newsweek: "For today, our temperatures are forecast to be around 10 to 20 degrees above normal, and it's about the same for Saturday ... There's a chance to break daily records for some areas, like the Burbank Airport, Woodland Hills, and Paso Robles."
Schoenfeld added: "We've been a lot cooler leading up these heat advisories, so it's going to feel pretty warm, pretty different."
NWS Los Angeles in a heat advisory: "Drink plenty of fluids, stay in an air-conditioned room, stay out of the sun, and check up on relatives and neighbors. Take extra precautions when outside. ... Take action when you see symptoms of heat exhaustion and heat stroke."
What Happens Next
After Saturday's high temperatures, the weather will begin to "rapidly" cool back down, Schoenfeld said. By Monday, the region will see temperatures that are a few degrees below normal.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Newsweek
an hour ago
- Newsweek
Texas Floods Could Worsen Housing Market Issues
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. The flash floods that claimed the lives of at least 135 people in Texas Hill Country on July 4 also impacted thousands of properties that stood along their path of death and destruction, according to estimates by researchers at data-driven tech company Cotality. Using rainfall, stream gage, and property data, Cotality experts recreated the footprint of the flash floods in central Texas, finding that over 38,600 homes in nine counties deemed eligible for individual and public assistance by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) are likely to have been damaged during that tragic weekend. "Now, that is a model number, but we stand by it and feel very confident in this number. And that's everywhere from Kerr County to Travis County, in and around the Austin area," Jon Schneyer, Cotality director of research & content, told Newsweek. While not all of these homes are likely to have been damaged by the floods, all of them were at least impacted, with properties in Tom Green, Travis, Kerr, Williamson, and Burnet counties identified as the most at-risk. For homeowners impacted by the floods and for anyone living in this particular part of central Texas already grappling with the immense loss of life caused by the extreme weather event, the coming months are likely to bring new challenges, experts say, and additional financial burdens. A damaged house is seen near the Guadalupe River in Hunt, Texas, on July 8 following severe flash flooding over the July 4 holiday weekend. A damaged house is seen near the Guadalupe River in Hunt, Texas, on July 8 following severe flash flooding over the July 4 holiday weekend. RONALDO SCHEMIDT/AFP via Getty Images What the Floods Could Do to Home Insurance Premiums The cost of home insurance has skyrocketed in recent years in Texas, reaching an average annual cost of $4,585 this year—117 percent more than the national average of $2,110, according to NerdWallet. Premiums are so expensive that many homeowners cannot afford them, and some are choosing to renounce paying extra for flood coverage, which is not included under the standard homeowner policy. "Remember, flood insurance is not offered as a standard homeowners insurance policy. You usually go and get your flood insurance through the National Flood Insurance Program through FEMA," Schneyer said. "Now, that is not required unless you have a mortgage and you're in the special flood hazard area or the 100-year flood zone." He added: "A lot of those homeowners, especially as you get outside of Kerrville or outside of Austin, might have already paid off their home, they are no longer required to have flood insurance." Cotality expects only a few homeowners to have flood insurance in this part of Texas. "They'll be able to apply for assistance through FEMA, but a majority of that damage, if they don't have flood insurance, it's going to be on the home and business owners to foot that bill," Schneyer said. "If your home cost $500,000 to rebuild entirely, that could be a pretty expensive recovery, not to mention the emotional and psychological damage from friends and neighbors losing their homes and livelihoods." Home insurance premiums could further rise as a result of the recent floods, exacerbating homeowners' existing struggles to protect their homes and even purchase properties. Bill Baldwin, board member of the Houston Association of Realtors (HAR) and a broker with 90 agents under his direction, told Newsweek that the biggest challenge he faces in the industry today is insurance. "It's the unaffordability of insurance, the inability to get insurance," he said. Baldwin and his colleagues at HAR have spent "a ton of effort, money and cooperation on providing flood notices" in recent years, but despite all of this, he said, they have not observed any increase of people securing flood insurance in Houston. "We have fewer people today with flood insurance than had at the day Harvey hit," Baldwin added. "The year after Harvey hit, we saw an increase in flood insurance policies. The cost of the flood insurance policy went up. Now it's been five years, six years, seven years, and the homeowners today are different from the ones back then—half of the people weren't here when Harvey hit." It is a "constant battle" to convince local homeowners that they need insurance, Baldwin says, even if they live in flood-prone areas. "We're Texans, we are hard-headed, we have a mindset of our own," he said. "We think we're supermen when we're not, necessarily. And we often don't experience or expect the intensity of the extreme weather events that we're now seeing," Baldwin explained. "We feel like we're not as vulnerable as we perhaps are." Texas Floods Could Worsen Housing Market Issues Texas Floods Could Worsen Housing Market Issues Newsweek Illustration/Canva/Getty/AP Newsroom ...To Home Prices All of these upward pressures on the cost of homeownership will reduce the desirability of living in flood-prone areas, putting downward pressure on housing demand, Cameron LaPoint, real estate expert and assistant professor of finance at the Yale School of Management, told Newsweek. "We are already seeing similar out-migration trends in places like coastal Florida, where there are similar problems of severe natural disaster risk, unraveling insurance markets, and evidence of post-pandemic overbuilding," he said. "A lack of affordable insurance may push prospective homeowners to look elsewhere, such as in climate haven cities in the northern U.S. which are among the few housing markets growing right now." LaPoint believes the areas directly impacted by the flash flood are likely to face "a continued decline in house prices and rents, which was already in progress after the recovery from the pandemic." Other experts, however, are skeptical about the idea of people choosing to live elsewhere because of the floods. "It might temporarily influence some homebuyer decisions, but the appeal of those counties will not likely change," Dr. Daniel Oney, research director at the Texas Real Estate Research Center at Texas A&M University, told Newsweek. "There may be some outside investor interest, but with mortgage rates currently high, investor activity is down overall—they rely on cheap credit to make their business models work." Baldwin is sure that Texas Hill Country will remain a popular vacation spot despite the risk of flash floods. "If you're from here, you've grown up going to the Guadalupe, or the Frio, or the Trinity. And it's a time-honored tradition to go to these places," he said. "Despite the tragedy, people will keep vacationing there, as we've seen people build after a hurricane or after other disasters. Houston is very hurricane-prone, but we added 75,000 people last year to the greater Houston area. They're not deciding against moving here because of the hurricane. They're learning to live with the new intensity of weather-related events." A Texas state flag flies in a yard filled with debris on July 6 in Hunt, Texas. A Texas state flag flies in a yard filled with debris on July 6 in Hunt, Rent Prices According to Oney, rent prices are likely to jump up in the short term in the areas affected by the floods. In the long term, it would be the "overall demand for those properties that will play a role," he told Newsweek. "Those communities have been popular for retirees and vacation homes because of the natural amenities," Oney said. "People's perceptions of risk are curious. In a few years we would expect the market dynamics to return to something like they were. Though rebuilding may try to avoid high flood risk areas." Baldwin fears the short-term impact that the communities along the Guadalupe River could suffer as tourism dries up and relocate to different parts of the state this summer, rather than any long-term impact. "Many of the people who are still on vacation around the greater Houston, Dallas, Austin area are gonna go to Fredericksburg or Round Top or Wimberley or one of these places that aren't necessarily related to the river, but they're still in the Hill Country and they have the same climate," he said. The greatest impact of this temporary exodus of tourists will be felt by working-class people, Baldwin added. "It's the maid who can't work in that deal, it's the lawn guy who doesn't have a job, it's the waitress who doesn't have anyone to wait on because the restaurant was closed for two weeks and did not have any unemployment insurance." These people, Baldwin said, need Texans' help—and he thinks locals will be rushing back to support them. "Because that's what Texans do," he said. ...And to Property Taxes LaPoint expects property tax revenues for the region affected by the flash floods to potentially shrink in the coming months, as homeowners impacted would either not be able to afford it or benefit from exemptions passed by appraisers as a form of relief. For example, Travis County, in Austin, is offering exemptions if the property suffered damages of at least 15 percent of its value, with up to a 100 percent exemption for those who suffered a total loss of their property. "More appraisers in flood-impacted counties are following suit," LaPoint said. At the same time, property tax bills could fall as a result of lower property values—at least in the short-term. "There is research showing that house prices fall in neighborhoods recently experiencing severe flooding, whether due to flash flooding or hurricanes. If price declines persist, this would also reduce future property tax revenues," LaPoint said. He added: "However, changes in house prices may not always translate to immediate changes in property tax bills due to the stickiness of assessed values and limits on rates. Recent amendments to property tax law in Texas increased homestead exemptions and made it more difficult for cities to raise rates. This will make it difficult for cities to close any short-run revenue gaps without aid from the state government." In its research, Cotality has found that areas that are frequently impacted by natural disasters experience a longer-term reduction in property values, while areas that are only occasionally hit experience a short-term drop. "What we have noticed is that over time, things start to regress back to normal. So especially in areas that are not impacted on a monthly or annual basis, if it's a decade in between flooding events, there's a bit of a short-term memory mentality." A person pays their respects at a memorial honoring the lives lost in the flash floods that claimed at least 135 lives on July 13 in Kerville, Texas. A person pays their respects at a memorial honoring the lives lost in the flash floods that claimed at least 135 lives on July 13 in Kerville, Changes We Can Expect the State Government to Make A majority of the experts who spoke to Newsweek expect the floods will not spur a seismic change in the state's real estate sector. "Texas is a strong property rights state. The governor [Greg Abbott] has called a special session with a few flood-related items, but they are limited to immediate relief efforts, flood warning systems, and streamlining regulations to help recovery," Oney said. "Additional property tax relief was on the session agenda before the floods. So, we don't expect the state to take any action that impacts markets long term because of this disaster." Texans who decide to stay in flood-prone areas are also unlikely to see much in the way of home improvement efforts, LaPoint said. "This is because it's difficult for individual homeowners to make these kinds of physical investments in their property—such as putting the home on stilts—given the relatively high costs involved," he said. "My research on Florida shows that publicly-backed loans can help homeowners fund hurricane-proofing projects that lower their insurance costs and increase the home's value. But projects like new window installations are much cheaper than flood prevention improvements." "Given the financial barriers faced by individual homeowners, there may be renewed calls from residents for the state to invest in key anti-flood prevention measures." Baldwin expects authorities to "probably increase the regulatory environment of a floodway" and update the maps the state is currently using to identify flood-prone areas—though that does not mean that those areas would be considered off-limits for developers, he said. "We're still going to build in these areas, we're just going to learn to build more resiliently," Baldwin added. "They will rebuild in some of these areas that some people would say you shouldn't be building in. It's probably not a practical solution. But it's how we build. People are driven to the coast, whether it's the East Coast, the West Coast, the Florida coast, or the Texas coast. So, you'll still have some development, you'll still have people willing to buy those structures." He continued: "There will be awareness for a brief period of time. But who's going to move there five years from now? They're going to be from California. They're going to be from the East Coast. They're not gonna have been there during that event. They'd have a small recollection, but no realistic experience. That's what happened in Houston. So, I still think people are gonna be at risk."
Axios
10 hours ago
- Axios
U.S. Northeast, Midwest face severe storms, flood threats
Much of the eastern U.S. and Midwest was facing the threat of severe thunderstorms and heavy rainfall, while heat alerts were issued Sunday for over 50 million people from Kansas to the Carolinas. The big picture: NOAA's Weather Prediction Center issued a Level 3 out of 4 risk for excessive rainfall over parts of the Ohio Valley through Monday morning, with storms containing 3-4"/hour rainfall rates developing Sunday evening. Forecasters said parts of Missouri and Illinois could see "locally significant" flash flooding. Threat level: A severe thunderstorm warning was issued for parts of Iowa, including Des Moines. Severe thunderstorm watches were issued for parts of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont until 9pm Sunday ET and for portions of Montana and North Dakota through midnight local time. Per a National Weather Service forecast discussion, there's a a slight risk of severe thunderstorms over parts of the Northeast, including New England; the Ohio Valley into the Central Appalachians; and the Northern and Central High Plains on Sunday and parts of the Northern Plains on Monday. A tornado warning was issued for Cincinnati, Ohio, the Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky Airport in Ky. and Covington, Ky. Sunday evening. New York, Boston and Indianapolis were among other major cities under threat from the severe weather. The D.C. area could also see isolated thunderstorms, a day after a flash flood emergency was declared in a Maryland region near the city. Meanwhile, the NWS warned warned the Central Plains, Lower and Middle Mississippi Valley, and Southeast should expect "dangerously hot conditions." Driving the news: A cold front over the Northeast to the Ohio Valley was threatening to unleash showers and severe thunderstorms, with the NWS warning potential hazards could include "frequent lightning, severe thunderstorm wind gusts, hail, and a few tornadoes." "A quasi-stationary front extending from the Great Basin to the Northern Plains and Middle Mississippi Valley remains quasi-stationary through Tuesday evening," per the NWS. "The eastern half of the front, extending from the Mid-Atlantic to the Middle Mississippi Valley on Sunday, will move southward to the Southeast and then extend northwestward to the Middle Mississippi Valley by Tuesday evening," per the agency. "Moisture pooling along the front over the Ohio Valley will produce showers and thunderstorms, accompanied by heavy rain." What we're watching: A building heat dome across central and southeastern parts of the U.S. was expected to impact much of the Midwest by Midweek, with peak heat indices of 105 to 115 degrees Fahrenheit expected in cities including Chicago Wednesday and Thursday.
Yahoo
13 hours ago
- Yahoo
Strong storms dumped rain on the Des Moines metro Sunday morning. How much fell?
Another round of thunderstorms has left the Des Moines metro a bit soggy. The system raged through area around 4 a.m., Sunday, July 20, producing several inches of rain and a wave of power outages. The National Weather Service issued multiple flash flood warnings for the Des Moines metro area between 2 a.m. and 7 a.m. The NWS also said some areas in the metro reported 1 to 3 inches of rainfall in an hour. How much rain fell in Iowa Sunday morning? The Des Moines metro area averaged 2-3 inches of rainfall after midnight on Sunday, according to the NWS. Most of that rainfall took place in the western metro, which includes Johnston, Grimes, Waukee and West Des Moines. More: Has Iowa done enough to protect foster care children? 'Horrific' case renews concerns The Iowa Environmental Mesonet website said Mitchelville saw the most rainfall in the state with 4.8 inches. Areas in southeastern Iowa, near Winterset, saw between 4-6 inches of rainfall, the NWS said. Here are the highest rain totals: Mitchelville: 4.8 inches Wauke: 4.4 inches More: Tornado warnings issued in Des Moines, Ames Saturday morning. Are more storms on the way? Adel: 3.7 inches Grimes: 3.5 inches Ubrandale: 3.1 inches Ankeny: 2.3 inches Ames: 1.44 inches More: Attorney General Brenna Bird drops lawsuit against Winneshiek County sheriff Power outages hit metro residents More than 1,600 residents were without power near Colfax at 8:30 a.m. Sunday, according to the Mid American power outage map. That power has been restored. Mid American said 429 residents in the Des Moines metro were still without power as of Noon on Sunday. More than 200 residents were without power between West Des Moines and Windsor Heights, which is expected to be restored by 2 p.m. Those within outage areas can check the Mid American power outage map for updates. NWS says tornado touched down in Gilbert The National Weather Service determined that a tornado touched down near Gilbert on Friday, July 18. The NWS said it was a radar confirmed tornado around 5:45 a.m. producing a track that was confirmed via satellite imagery. The NWS said they will release more information at a later date, including the rating of the cell and the distance it traveled. Chris Meglio is a reporter for the Register. Reach him at cmeglio@ or on X @chris_meglio. This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: How much rain fell in Des Moines? Some areas report more than 4 inches Solve the daily Crossword
