We’re used to time-bending drives in Southern California, watching our ETAs get longer instead of shorter as traffic jams grow. So I was resigned but not surprised when my 66-mile drive from Ventura to Elysian Park stretched from 86 minutes to 100 minutes Thursday afternoon.
What I didn’t expect was hail. On the first day of August. Around 2:25 p.m. After driving through nearly 100 degrees in the San Fernando Valley.
Now you know why I have seven sweatshirts and jackets in my car. At all times.
More weirdly, my trip started with temperatures in the low 70s in Ventura, where the spring and a good chunk of the summer have been cool and overcast. We’ve had some lovely blue-sky days in late July with temperatures in the low 80s, but Thursday, the clouds were back for a good part of the day.
When I took my walk that morning the temperature was in the low 60s, chilly enough to warrant a sweatshirt. But by 12:45 p.m., when I headed into L.A., it was around 70 degrees. I expected it to be a good 10 degrees hotter, so I wore shorts and a sleeveless shirt for my walk through Elysian Park while reporting on a story.
As expected, by the time I climbed the Conejo Pass on the 101 Freeway heading east, the temperature climbed quickly.
I couldn’t tell this inside my car of course, thanks to air conditioning, but my temperature sensor began climbing to the high 80s in Thousand Oaks and by the time I drove through Tarzana, the gauge read 99 degrees, just 45 miles from where I’d started.
I expected the temperature to stay in the 90s as I headed east, but instead the skies clouded up and the temperature began dropping, down to the low 80s.
And about 2:25 p.m. as I passed Forest Lawn Cemetery in the Hollywood Hills on the 134 Freeway, tiny white balls began pelting my wildshield. They were smaller than the smallest peas, but hard enough to make staccato tap-tap-taps as they struck my windshield and melted into tiny droplets of water.
By the time I reached the West Loop Trailhead in Elysian Park 20 minutes later, the skies were broken clouds, so I grabbed my sweatshirt, ensuring, of course, that the sun would break out a short time later.
The drive home around 5:30 p.m. was predictably slow but relatively uneventful weather-wise.
Meanwhile a prolonged heat wave is sweeping through inland areas of the state. My one weird weather day isn’t indicative of a wider trend — the National Weather Service noted a “seemingly never-ending heat wave” in July — but is exemplary of the microclimates we experience in Southern California. It may be triple digits in one spot, hailing momentarily in another.
One nice thing about driving west, however, is a front row seat to spectacular sunsets. There were still clouds, but so wispy they had an iridescent sheen like spun sugar.
And the sunset — bits of clouds turned deep salmon pink and plum — did not disappoint.