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LOS ANGELES Friday June 4 (Reuters)
- It's a bummer, dude.
This city of sun-worshippers,
beach goddesses, surfers and sun-seeking tourists is doing something
it seldom does -- complaining about the weather.
Normally balmy Los Angeles is
enduring a spell of unusually cool and cloudy weather,
courtesy of a weather phenomenon called La Nina -- and predictions
are that it could last all summer. It is the talk of the town.
"Weird weather has suddenly
become the norm," local KNBC weatherman Fritz Coleman told
tense TV listeners recently.
The natives are restless, feeling
more gloomy than groovy, and they all seemed to have donned
sweaters and coats to battle a "June Gloom" they fear
will never lift.
The cloudy weather has been the
second or third item on the evening TV news for days and the
staple of radio talk shows, pushing such issues as Kosovo
off the map for Angelenos.
Temperatures have averaged 50
to 70 degrees Fahrenheit (10 and 21 degrees Celsius), five to
10 degrees Fahrenheit (two to five degrees Celsius) cooler than
normal.
"It's a big topic down here,"
said John Moryl, a lifeguard at Santa Monica's beach. "All
the patrons complain about it. It's not every June that it rains
all night," he said referring to a winter-like storm earlier
in the week.
Southern Californians are familiar
with "June Gloom" -- the low clouds and morning fog
that can keep the coast chilly, especially in the morning. As
any dedicated surfer knows, the fog usually lifts and weather
gets warm by afternoon. And the fog disappears by July.
But some weather experts are
predicting that this year La Nina -- a sister to the El Nino
phenomenon which unleashed unusually rainy weather on
Southern California last year -- will blot out
the sun for much of the next three months. |
"Today looks like February
down here," Moryl said, looking out over the Pacific Ocean.
"It's very blustery and there's a cold wind out of the west.
Its more like January or February and it's June 3rd already."
Lifeguards, who are using heaters
in their wooden towers, have had complaints from unhappy beach-goers,
said Moryl.
"Oh, yeah, they casually
remark to the lifeguards that it's not very summer-like down
here," he said.
The only people who don't mind
the gloomy weather are surfers who hope the storms will kick
up a few good waves and keep the beach bums at bay and out of
their way.
"Dude, its been totally
gloomy, and the water's totally cold. But everybody I know could
care less if it was super cloudy all year, as long as the waves
are good," said surfer Jason Regehr, 25.
Dave Danielson, a spokesman for
the National Weather Service, said the "Summer of Gloom"
can be blamed on La Nina, which cools the water temperature off
California's coast. That, in turn, cools the air temperature
over the water, creating an "inversion layer" beneath
the warm air of the upper atmosphere. As a result the clouds
and fog on the coast are trapped.
"Basically in a La Nina
year it's not unusual to have colder-than-normal temperatures
along the coast," he said. "And you'll also see a stronger
than normal sea-breeze, which tends to bring clouds in and make
them persist a little longer."
Danielson said his office has
not predicted a summer-long trend. "You can't say something
is going to happen for the next three months.''
Meanwhile, that famous TV program
celebrating Los Angeles sun and surf, "Baywatch," has
moved out of town -- to Hawaii, where the skies are blue and
sunny all day. It must have known that "June Gloom"
was headed this way.
Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited. |
