The Brief

We all know it’s hot — and getting hotter.

According to NOAA and NASA, the 10 warmest years globally since 1850 have all occurred in the past decade. In less than 200 years, when the Industrial Revolution began, the global average temperature has increased by more than two degrees Fahrenheit.

While the planet’s climate has changed dramatically over millions of years, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are now at their highest in millenia due to pollution from human society. Scientific consensus proves the modern, rapid weather shifts we're now experiencing are a result of how we humans, largely through fossil fuel pollution, are changing the climate.

The science is clear that we’re entering a new era of extreme heat. We’re unlikely to keep global temperatures below the threshold scientists have raised the alarm about for years, and weather extremes will only become more frequent and intense if we don’t dramatically cut emissions in the next seven years or soon after.

So, as the earth heats up, what is “normal” vs “extreme” heat? How is the climate crisis affecting heat here in Southern California?

Normal heat in the Southland

Of course, July through September and even much of October in southern California, it's normal for the weather to heat up. Southern California has deserts, mountains and the ocean, so our temperatures vary widely. From geography to tree cover to local weather patterns, there are a lot of factors that naturally make some parts of Southern California hotter than others. My colleague, science reporter Jacob Margolis, explains in more detail in this story.

'Extreme' vs 'normal' heat

What’s normal versus extreme depends on where you live — after all, what’s considered a hot day in Santa Monica is a far cry from a hot day in Palm Springs.

The climate crisis is shifting average temperatures hotter — not every day, or every season, but it’s driving an average increase in both day and nighttime temperatures.

How the climate crisis is expected to affect heat in California.

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Courtesy of the California Legislative Analyst's Office

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That also means longer and more frequent “heat waves,” during which temperatures reach higher extremes and stay there for longer periods of time. A week-long heat wave in early September 2022 was the hottest and longest in the state’s record for that month, which is already one of the hottest months in California.

“Whether you're on the coast, whether you're in the mountains, whether you're in the deserts, whether you're in between, all those averages are going up,” said Alex Tardy, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service (NWS) San Diego office.

In Southern California, the most rapid and dramatic increases are happening in the deserts and the mountains, already extreme environments, Tardy said.

Doing the math

Since 1901, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has collected temperature records from weather stations across the country. They use that information, combined with other data and computer models to calculate specific “climate normals” for different regions.

The “normals” add up to a 30-year average temperature, or what’s considered a long-term average temperature. NOAA’s National Weather Service uses those average temperatures to decide whether a heat event is extreme or not.

“Abnormal heat is typically daytime temperatures 10 to as much as 20 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the long-term average,” said Tardy. “When we talk about a heat wave, what we're talking about is really two or more days when temperatures are much above average.”

NOAA's latest climate normals map showing the normals from 1991-2020 minus 1981-2010 normals. Most of the U.S. shows significant warming, especially in the West, Southwest and East, where soem normals jumped by a whole degree already.

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Courtesy of NOAA

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Since our bodies take time to acclimate to changes in temperature, those averages depend on the time of year. For example, Tardy said that an abnormal threshold in mid-July in L.A would be 90 degrees, whereas it would be 110 degrees in Palm Springs.

“We look at the heat risk, we look at the departure from normal, we look at the ability for someone to be able to acclimate to the heat,” Tardy said. “We don't just look at the fact that it's a hundred degrees and that requires a heat warning.”

Every 10 years, NOAA recalculates the climate normals — most recently in 2020 — and overall, averages are going up.

“Normals and averages — it's always been a moving target, but the target is moving up and up and up and warmer and warmer and that's what we've seen the past 10 years,” said Tardy.

Six of the last 10 years have been the hottest on record in Southern California, Tardy said.

Ranking heat waves like hurricanes 

When the NWS sees abnormal temperatures in the forecast, that can spark a heat watch or excessive heat warning or advisory. These warnings are meant to help individuals stay safe, inform governments and businesses, and can trigger some legal protections for outdoor workers.

NWS is currently prototyping an extreme heat risk scale that will more directly communicate how different heat extremes translate to health risk. They've already used it in tweets about the current heat wave:

Tardy said improving early communication about the dangers of heat is especially important as the climate crisis makes heat more extreme and frequent — already, heat kills more people than any other weather event in the U.S.

“Heat is a very silent killer,” Tardy said. “It's not something that we see like a hurricane or a flood or a winter storm. It's something that just kind of catches up to you over time. It's one of those things that a lot of people don't take seriously until it happens to them.”

The idea is to rank heat waves similar to how we rank hurricanes. California lawmakers also passed a bill in 2022 requiring a statewide heat wave ranking system by 2025.

The prototype scale for ranking heat waves amid a changing climate.

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Courtesy of NOAA

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“People can really relate to the magnitude or the potential impact on a five versus a one [for a hurricane],” Tardy said. “So we're trying to do that also with heat.”

NOAA’s current prototype, which you can peruse here, uses a color scale to indicate how dangerous forecasted temperatures may be to health. NWS is currently using it to inform its official heat alerts, but it will likely be a few years before it’s used in widespread public communication.

“The overall magnitude of the event — not just, 'It's 110 degrees' — that's something we're really trying to focus on more,” Tardy said.

The scale forecasts seven days in advance and allows a more nuanced view of heat as it relates to health by incorporating data about:

• How significantly above normal the temperatures are at your location.
• The time of the year. 
• How long the unusual heat will last (will overnight temperatures get low enough to lower heat stress? How much warmer than average will those temperatures be?)

Weather forecasting has gotten a lot better, and it is another tool to save lives amid the climate crisis, Tardy said. He hopes the heat risk scale will better communicate the health dangers of heat and help people better protect themselves and their loved ones amid our hotter normal.

“We have to do a better job ingraining it into the culture — that it's not just hot all the time, it's not just hot because it's summer,” Tardy said. “When we start talking about heat alerts or heat warnings, it's something that should be treated as, ‘Hey, this is very unusual.’ And we can't just treat the day or the activity as normal.”

Staying safe in the heat

This story first appeared on Long Beach Post.

After weeks of stifling heat, Long Beach is preparing for a different kind of weather: powerful southerly swells, followed by rain showers as early as Saturday, all courtesy of a hurricane expected to make landfall in California this weekend.

Waves arrived along the Peninsula on Wednesday — sending water onto the boardwalk and side streets — and returned Thursday, slapping against the already weakened bulkhead that serves as the last line of defense for a number of beach homes.

With a coastal advisory in effect through Friday, experts say 3-to-6-foot waves are being carried to shore by tides reaching 7 feet high and leaving behind dangerous rip currents.

City crews were busy the past several days stowing hundreds of sandbags beneath the boardwalk as a second barrier, with emergency pumps ready. The work is complicated by the short window between recurring high tides and a limited supply of sand.

“We’re just basically trying to create a buffer between that impact zone, the energy of the impact, and that wall,” said Marine Safety Chief Gonzalo Medina. “I do expect that we will see some activity and some water intrusion out onto the streets, certainly the boardwalk.”

Marine and fire crews are expected to stand by overnight to monitor water levels and assist residents.

The area has already been tested this year, taking damage from Hurricane Marie over Labor Day weekend, followed by Hurricane Polo in late September. The National Weather Service says this week’s flooding will probably exceed Polo’s but fall short of Marie’s.

Kristan Lund, a meteorologist with the NWS office in Oxnard, said swells are forecast to peak Thursday through Saturday during the morning and evening tides.

It’s another example of an abnormal season, Lund said, where tides are running 1 to 2 feet higher than usual, well “above the astronomical tide charts.”

Waves are being charged north by Hurricane Rachel, which is expected to weaken considerably before it makes landfall 100 miles south of San Diego early Sunday and reaches the California-New Mexico border by Monday.

In comparison to the 2023 tropical storm Hillary, which wrought widespread flooding that necessitated rescues in desert towns, Lund said this storm is farther south and entering at a more horizontal angle toward New Mexico.

But it’s still “hard to tell for right now” how the storm will progress, Lund said, saying higher-resolution models should be released Friday or Saturday that more accurately predict its path.

Forecasters say the system should still deliver heavy rain, gusty winds, dangerous surf and localized flooding, with hazardous zones stretching as far north as Orange County.

In Long Beach, rain could start as early as Saturday morning and linger through Tuesday night, with the best chance from Sunday morning through Monday evening.

Totals are expected to be modest, roughly a quarter to three-quarters of an inch, with a small chance of thunderstorms. South-to-west gusts of 20 to 35 mph are likely from Saturday through Monday, adding the risk of fallen trees and power lines.

“The wind would actually be a lot more problematic than the rain,” Medina said. “You have a lot of trees already that we’re seeing, just from this heat, that have fallen. This heat has weakened the structure of a lot of these trees. And now you bring wind into the equation. The trees bring down power lines, and it gets complicated after that.”

Why is this happening?

The storm arrives at the tail end of a weekslong heat wave that experts say is a consequence of climate change compounded by El Niño, which has kept nights unusually warm and humid.

“At night it’s not cooling off as much, and that ends up being pretty consequential,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with UC Agriculture and Natural Resources. “Because obviously the night is when people would usually cool down.”

El Niño also helps explain the high number of hurricanes and storm systems like Rachel and its predecessors, Swain said. “El Niño also increases hurricane activity in the eastern Pacific Ocean,” Swain said, describing a season that ranks as either the most or second most active on record depending on the metric.

The result has been repeated surges of tropical moisture toward Southern California, leaving humidity high.

Ocean temperatures off the coast are now about 7 to 8 degrees above average, and the Pacific from central Baja California to Southern California is at record warmth in data going back to 1982. Warm water expands, and a Kelvin wave, an underwater ripple that becomes “coastally trapped” as it reaches the Americas, can add 6 to 12 inches to background sea levels, potentially for months.

Swain said harbor masters and fire departments in coastal Los Angeles County have been calling him. “They’re like, ‘I’ve never seen water this high,'” he said, adding one told him it was the highest in 30 years, on a day that wasn’t supposed to be a particularly high tide.

And he expects it to get worse. “That’s something that’s actually going to get worse as we go into November and December.”

More Kelvin waves are expected this season, and scientists worry about one coinciding with a king tide, a major storm or both. The Climate Prediction Center is forecasting a wetter-than-average winter for Southern California, and Swain sees little doubt.

“All signs continue to point toward a very wet winter in coastal Southern California,” he said. “I would be very surprised if we did not have that.”

For now, the city is focused on the week ahead. Sandbag distribution sites open Thursday at 10 a.m. at Fire Stations 7, 12, 13 and 14, and at the Claremont Beach parking lot, through Tuesday.

Empty sandbags are available at all LBFD neighborhood Fire Stations. While the Claremont Beach Parking Lot (5400 E. Ocean Blvd.) site is offering sand and sandbags through Tuesday. Sand and sandbags are also available at the locations listed below starting Thursday, Oct. 8, at 10 a.m.:

• Fire Station 7 – 2295 Elm St.
• Fire Station 12 – 1199 E. Artesia Blvd.
• Fire Station 13 – 2475 Adriatic Ave.
• Fire Station 14 – 5200 E. Eliot St.

Find more ways to be prepared at LBPost.com/elnino

The first bite at n/naka, the acclaimed Westside Japanese restaurant, asks you to slow down. The meal opens with an oyster dressed with asparagus, elderflower, dill and horseradish, served beside caviar on a puffed-rice crisp over a bed of juniper sprigs.

The oyster's briny, meaty texture meets earthy, herbal notes and a touch of sweetness from the produce. It's a bite with weight, enough to carry you somewhere else entirely: a forest at the edge of a rugged coastal range, waves crashing at your feet.

It’s the kind of moment that chefs Niki Nakayama and Carole Iida-Nakayama have been building for 15 years.

Understanding kaiseki

Kaiseki is a traditional multicourse Japanese meal built from a series of small, seasonal dishes. Its roots are often traced to both the quiet meals served before a tea ceremony and the more elaborate banquets paired with sake. Today, the style is defined less by a single origin than by its emphasis on seasonality, balance and presentation.

The zensai course arrives as a bamboo basket of small bites, including shrimp, chawanmushi and a beef taquito, a nod to Nakayama’s L.A. upbringing.

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Gab Chabrán

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LAist

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The tiny, unassuming Michelin-starred restaurant — which seats only 26 people at a time — is located on a quiet corner in the Palms neighborhood. n/naka was one of the first restaurants in America to serve modern kaiseki; Nakayama, who was born and raised in Los Angeles, helped introduce kaiseki to the city when n/naka opened in 2011. She describes the restaurant’s style of cuisine as “a modern California Japanese kaiseki," and her skills have been repeatedly recognized; she's been nominated as an outstanding chef by the James Beard Foundation twice, most recently in 2026.

In a city where restaurants regularly close after a few years, still being in existence — and thriving — after 15 years deserves its own acknowledgment.

Celebrating with friends

Instead of throwing a party for their 15th anniversary, the two chefs, who are partners both in business and in life, invited like-minded chefs from New York to Lima to cook with them in a series of one-night-only dinners.

n/naka chefs Carole Iida-Nakayama (left) and Niki Nakayama (right), with Micha Tsumura of Maido, one of the guest chefs in the restaurant’s anniversary dinner series.

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Zen Sekizawa Photography

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Courtesy n/naka

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“I really wanted to not just collab for the sake of doing collabs,” she said. She wanted the chefs “that had the same angle and story as ours, where they’re coming from somewhere else, and they’re recreating the food from their personal perspective.”

Each dinner has its own theme, Nakayama said. A collaboration with Emma Bengtsson of the two-Michelin-star restaurant Aquavit in New York honored women in the industry. A partnership with Micha Tsumura of Maido in Lima, Peru — named the World's Best Restaurant in 2025 by World's 50 Best — explored diaspora. There’s one dinner left — on December 15, with Shinichi Aoki of Hashiri Bettei Kaiseki in the Bay Area. Aoki’s will bring together traditional kaiseki and n/naka’s modern version.

The menu

If you're lucky enough to get a reservation for their regular menu, however, you can still expect a spectacular meal. (I grabbed the chance to attend a rare media tasting). 12 vibrant courses for $395 per person, with a wine pairing of $195.

The meal weaves together a range of influences, beginning with the oyster. From there, it moves to the zensai, a bamboo basket of delicately crafted bites that looks like a bejeweled version of Thanos' Infinity Gauntlet. It holds a tiny beef taquito, California blue shrimp, chawanmushi topped with a single slice of mushroom, and corn tempura.

California seems top of mind in every morsel, starting with the taquito. Nakayama says tacos appeared on past menus throughout the years. "Those are experiences that I've had growing up," she said. "They deserve to be celebrated within this context."

A steamed course of a crab-and-shrimp dumpling, floating in tomato dashi, finished with lemongrass and basil oil.

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Gab Chabrán

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LAist

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Another course crosses cultures: a steamed crab-and-shrimp dumpling in tomato dashi, finished with lemongrass and basil oil. Lemongrass is a staple of Southeast Asian cooking, and Nakayama said she has never seen it used in Japanese food. "I think we can put it all together and still make it work and ultimately still have it feel very Japanese," she said.

As the meal progresses, the dishes grow richer. One is spaghetti studded with fish roe and topped with abalone and shaved truffle. Another is A5 wagyu served alongside a hollowed-out squash packed with sweet corn, finished with a crisp, butterfly-shaped cracker. The beef's melt-in-your-mouth richness plays against the vegetables' delicacy, and the plate feels whole.

‘One time, one meeting’

The back of the menu carries an old Japanese proverb, ichi-go, ichi-e, which means "one time, one meeting." It embodies the idea that every encounter should be treasured because it will never happen again. Below it, the menu calls California n/naka's "living landscape" and kaiseki its "culinary medium," setting the tone for the evening.

Nakayama said the idea guides her kitchen. "You will never have this day, this hour, this minute back," she said. "So be in the moment."

Looking ahead, she hopes the restaurant can be a refuge. "I think there's so much stress in the world that if there's a place you can step into that's a reprieve from that, I would hope that a place like ours fills that space," she said.

Inglewood Mayor James Butts didn’t show up to The LA Local’s mayoral candidate forum Wednesday night, but the five candidates challenging his bid for reelection weren’t shy about criticizing his 15-year tenure at the city’s helm.

Mayoral candidates Raina Carrillo, Fre’Drisha Dixon, Gloria Gray, Arturo Martinez and Joseph Soto all joined the forum and laid out their ideas about everything from housing affordability to traffic. 

The five challengers agreed on the need for term limits for city officials, a forensic audit of city finances and a change from 2 p.m. City Council meetings to a more publicly accessible evening slot. They lashed out at the city’s handling of Inglewood’s video billboards, the flagging Market Street commercial corridor and Bryan Bostic’s death in police custody during Butts’ time in office.

The LA Local invited Butts to attend the forum and held a chair open for him on stage throughout the event. A full video of the forum will be available online on Thursday. 

Voting has already begun in Inglewood and will continue until Nov. 3. The stakes are high amid an ongoing dispute between the city and its major venues, and stadium and billboard interests have already poured millions into the election.

LA Local reporter LaMonica Peters and youth journalist Lakshmi Leon moderated the forum, asking questions gathered from The LA Local’s community survey and from the more than 100 community members in the audience. 

Lead moderator, LaMonica Peters, left, reporter with The LA Local, and Lakshmi Leon, 17, student reporter and a junior at Inglewood High School, ask questions to the mayoral candidates during the Inglewood Mayoral Candidates Forum held at Inglewood High School.

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Gary Coronado

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The LA Local

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Nicole Sims was part of the audience in the auditorium of the former Morningside High School —  temporarily the home of Inglewood High School. 

The lifelong Inglewood resident said she hoped to hear ideas from the fresher faces in Inglewood politics, especially candidates who have come from the community and haven’t held elected office before.

“Just because someone has been in the office doesn’t mean they’re necessarily the best candidate to push the city forward,” Sims said. 

Jessica Foard, a teacher, said she had hoped Butts would attend the forum so she and Bostic’s family could ask questions about how the mayor has handled Bostic’s case, but wasn’t surprised he didn’t attend.

“He doesn’t feel like he needs to answer to anybody,” Foard said. 

Inglewood’s election season has been contentious as candidates spar with each other online and at city meetings, trading barbs and allegations of misconduct. 

Wednesday’s forum remained largely cordial. Dixon called out Gray twice, asking why she hasn’t pushed harder as a council member for more transparency or information about Bostic’s death. Gray rebutted that she’s been active about both issues within the constraints of her job. 

Central to the election is the city’s relationship with its crown jewel stadiums and fleet of video billboards, which collectively bring millions in revenue to the city’s budget and have changed the rhythm of daily life for residents. 

Candidates critiqued the city’s current financial arrangement with video billboard company WOW Media. They pitched a variety of solutions for the traffic jams and parking snags that are a feature of major events in the city, from barricading side streets to building an Elon Musk-inspired traffic tunnel.

Some took aim at the city’s parking permit program, which charges residents in some neighborhoods for extra streetside permits.

With new development continuing around Inglewood, the candidates proposed a range of housing affordability fixes from property tax relief to affordable dwelling units, or ADUs.

Chibby Azingee-Welton, of Inglewood, snaps her fingers in agreement at the Inglewood Mayoral Candidates Forum held at Inglewood High School on Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2026, in Inglewood.

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Gary Coronado

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The LA Local

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Anil Raj, one of the attendees, said he was impressed with Dixon’s proposals and with the passion from Martinez and Soto. Gray, he said, seemed to represent Inglewood’s past. 

Inglewood’s mayoral election is a primary, meaning the top two vote-getters will move on to a runoff in the spring unless one gets more than half of votes cast by Nov. 3. Butts first needed a runoff to win office in 2011, but wrapped up dominant November wins in 2014, 2018 and 2022. 

Carrillo, Dixon and Soto have all made runs for mayor before. Gray, who is on the board of the West Basin Municipal Water District in addition to being a council member, is the only candidate besides Butts currently holding elected office.

Inglewood resident Sandra Jones said she hopes people will go vote.

“We can complain as citizens of this community,” Jones said, “but we actually need to get out and vote and make a change.”

Check out our voter guides

Inglewood’s ballot is packed beyond the mayor’s race with voters set to weigh in on two City Council members, three school board members and three ballot initiatives.

Check out The LA Local’s voter guides below: 

• Your LA Local Voter Guide: Inglewood Mayor 
• Your LA Local Voter Guide: Inglewood City Council 
• Your LA Local Voter Guide: Inglewood Board of Education 
• Your LA Local Voter Guide: Measure AT, the Ordinance to Amend the Admissions Tax for Large Venues
• Your LA Local Voter Guide: Measure BB, the Ordinance to Eliminate Advertising on Public Right-of-Way
• Your LA Local Voter Guide: Inglewood Unified School District Measure MM

The post Inglewood mayoral challengers weigh in on video billboards and transparency while Butts skips The LA Local’s candidate forum  appeared first on LA Local.