As the Old Expression Goes: It’s Not the Heat, It’s the Humidity

Five-hundred children can’t all be wrong. That’s how many per week have been tumbling into the pool at the Hollywood YMCA, a 15% to 20% increase in attendance over the same time last year, according to aquatics director Jeremy Colin.

And Carnation Co., based in Los Angeles, reports a “nice jump” in its ice cream sales throughout Southern California for the month of August. “It was a little warmer,” explained company spokesman Dick Curd.

Guess again.

In fact, according to the National Weather Service, this has been a relatively cool August, with daytime temperatures averaging about 3 degrees lower than the 84-degree daytime highs normally recorded for the month. A strong coastal breeze, forecasters said, has kept temperatures below average.

But at the same time, it’s been a lot more humid than usual. Weather Service meteorologist Michael Lewis said a high-pressure system over the southwestern United States has acted like a pump in drawing moisture from the subtropics and the Gulf of Mexico into Southern California, resulting in humidity ranging from 50% to 90%.

“It’s been very humid and that feels a lot more uncomfortable,” Lewis said. “When you combine the humidity and the temperature, it actually feels warmer.”

The result: complaints all around, some even from California natives proclaiming the month just ended to have been one of the most enervating Augusts in memory.

The complainers have turned on their air conditioners accordingly.

Southern California Edison, which serves most of the region outside the Los Angeles city limits, reports a 5% increase in power usage this August over last, which a company spokesman attributes in part to the weather.

And Tom Denbo, a power supply planner for the Department of Water and Power, which serves Los Angeles, said that power usage for August was only slightly below that of August, 1984, the highest ever recorded. “In dry weather people run their air conditioners during the day; in humid weather they run it all day and all night,” he said. “It’s uncomfortable to sleep without air conditioning when it’s humid.”

Despite a weeklong trend of falling humidity, Lewis said, uncomfortable conditions are expected to continue at least through the weekend. Traditionally, temperatures do not begin dropping in Southern California until mid-October.