Sept. 7 (UPI) — The National Weather Service said Los Angeles County experienced its highest official temperature ever recorded on Sunday.
The federal agency said Woodland Hills registered a temperature of 121 degrees Fahrenheit just before 1:30 p.m. Sunday, topping the previous 119-degree record set on July 22, 2006.
“This broke the all-time record high temperature for the station,” the NWS said in a 1: 32 p.m. statement. “This is also the highest temperature ever observed at an official recording station in Los Angeles County or in the Los Angeles County Warning Area, which includes San Luis Obispo County, Santa Barbara County, Ventura County and Los Angeles County.”
Weather stations in Paso Robles, Santa Maria, Santa Barbara, Camarillo, Down Town Los Angeles, Long Beach, Burbank, Lancaster and Palmdale all registered high-temperature records on Sunday, the NWS said in a 6:18 p.m. update, adding that several of the records had stood since 1955.
The heat spike caused the California Independent System Operator to issue an energy conservation warning that was to be in effect until 9 p.m.
“It’s time, California,” it said on Twitter. “Let’s do this together.”
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said the heatwave was causing power outages throughout the city and crews would be working to restore the power as soon as possible.
“Time to turn off major appliances, set the thermostat to 78 degrees (or use a fan instead), turn off excess lights and unplug any appliances you’re not using,” the mayor tweeted. “We need every Californian to help conserve energy. Please do your part.”
More than 60,000 homes were without power as of 8 p.m. PDT, according to poweroutage.us.
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power estimated power would be restored between 24 and 36 hours from the start of the outage.
Sunday’s record occurred nearly a month after California’s Death Valley registered what may have been Earth’s hottest temperature ever recorded at 130 degrees on Aug. 16.
