Extreme heat breaks SoCal records. When will it end?

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Set us as preferred Southern California has seen some toasty Octobers, but this year’s start to the fall season has been marked by a persistent heat wave that’s shattered records and ushered in an unusual streak of 100 degree days.The extreme heat is driven by a persistent high pressure ridge that has parked over the region causing sinking warming air with very little overnight relief.

That is paired with down-sloping winds and uncharacteristically warm ocean temperatures driven in part by El Niño that has reduced Southern California’s sea breeze, frequently known as its natural air conditioning.The unusually high temperatures won’t even relent much for those living along the coast.

“We’re going on day four of this really significant heat wave and we still have several more days of heat,” said Rose Schoenfeld, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard.“We do have heat events in October, but this streak of 100 plus days is definitely starting to become pretty notable.”The average number of 100 degree days in downtown Los Angeles in a typical October has been closer to zero than one since the weather service began keeping records.

So far this month, downtown is on a three-day streak of temperatures 100 degrees or higher and could hit a fourth, according to the weather service.If the mercury hits 100 degrees on Monday, “that’ll be the longest streak of 100 or higher days in October that we’ve seen for the period of record for that site,” Schoenfeld said.

The weather service keeps records for downtown Los Angeles dating back to the 1800s.Dodgers Saturday’s game started 45 minutes after the National Weather Service issued an extreme heat warning as the temperature reached 100 degrees at first pitch at Dodger Stadium.The current heat wave has already broken daily heat records across...