West Coast heat wave could set record for hottest World Series game on Tuesday
Another heat wave is in full swing across the West, with triple-digit heat roasting southern California and raising wildfire risks to "critical" levels. Strong offshore Santa Ana winds have been blowing in parts of southern California, leading to hot, dry, and windy weather that is a perfect recipe for turning small brush fires into raging infernos during what is already California's worst fire season on record.
With a forecast high temperature of about 102 degrees Fahrenheit on Tuesday, it's likely that the first game of the World Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Houston Astros will set a record for the hottest baseball playoff game, let alone World Series game, in history.
In Los Angeles, winds are forecast to gust to at least 50 miles per hour on Tuesday, with a high temperature of 105 degrees Fahrenheit possible.
The National Weather Service warned that heat-related illnesses are possible, particularly considering the fact that many people close to the coast don't normally experience such high temperatures and lack air conditioning. Excessive heat warnings as well as red flag warnings have been issued to indicate the extreme temperatures and wildfire threat.
At game time at Dodgers Stadium on Tuesday shortly after 5 p.m. Pacific Time, the temperature is likely to be between 95 and 100 degrees Fahrenheit. If the temperature is above 94 degrees, it would set a World Series record, according to records kept by meteorologist Alex Lamers.
According to statistics, Lamers maintains that the previous hottest game occurred in 2001, when the Arizona Diamondbacks played the New York Yankees in 94-degree weather in Phoenix.
The Los Angeles heat may even alter game itself, to an extent, since extreme heat can help make the difference between a line drive and a shallow home run. Cold temperatures, on the other hand, can slightly inhibit home runs.
According to mlb.com, major league teams tend to hit better and score more runs during hotter games. "Just 3.1 percent of at-bats ended in a home run at the coldest temperatures; 4.4 percent did at the warmest," wrote MLB columnist Mike Petriello, comparing games that took place across a range of temperatures.
October tends to be a particularly dangerous time of year when it comes to California wildfires. This year has highlighted this, but to an historic degree.
Hot, dry conditions with gusty offshore winds were largely responsible for creating California's deadliest wildfire event earlier this month, when a fast-moving firestorm destroyed more than 8,700 structures and killed at least 42, mainly in Napa and Sonoma Counties of northern California. Early estimates put the likely cost of the wildfires at into the billions of dollars, based on the amount of property damaged or destroyed.
The conditions early this week in southern California will be similar to the perfect storm of ingredients that led to such a tragedy in other parts of the state. The question is whether any fires will break out. And if so, will they grow too quickly amid the dry conditions for firefighters to contain them?
Andrew Freedman is Mashable's Senior Editor for Science and Special Projects. Prior to working at Mashable, Freedman was a Senior Science writer for Climate Central. He has also worked as a reporter for Congressional Quarterly and Greenwire/E&E Daily. His writing has also appeared in the Washington Post, online at The Weather Channel, and washingtonpost.com, where he wrote a weekly climate science column for the "Capital Weather Gang" blog. He has provided commentary on climate science and policy for Sky News, CBC Radio, NPR, Al Jazeera, Sirius XM Radio, PBS NewsHour, and other national and international outlets. He holds a Masters in Climate and Society from Columbia University, and a Masters in Law and Diplomacy from The Fletcher School at Tufts University.
