SF Bay Area breaks several temperature records on Wednesday

A temperature gauge at the Oakland Museum hit 73, surpassing the former record of 71 set in 2014.

To the south of the Bay Area, the Salinas Airport recorded a high of 85, beating the record of 83 set in 1956. 

Dec. 1, 9:30 a.m. The San Francisco Bay Area is expected to see record-breaking temperatures Wednesday afternoon as a ridge of high pressure over the state deflects storm activity to the north, the National Weather Service said. 

“To hear we’re approaching record-high temps in the 70s may be strange as usually we’re talking about record temperatures in the 90s, but it is December 1,” said Gerry Diaz, a meteorologist with the weather service’s Monterey office. “We do expect to approach a few record high temperatures.”

Temperatures have been running up to 10 degrees above normal this week, and they’re expected to peak Wednesday afternoon with widespread 70s in the Bay Area and temperatures in the 80s to the south of the region. 

Oakland hit a high of 73 degrees Tuesday, while Sonoma and Half Moon Bay hit 71 degrees, and San Francisco and San Rafael hit 70, the weather service said. To the south of the Bay Area, Pinnacles National Park was a balmy 84.

Here are forecast highs for the Bay Area on Wednesday:

San Francisco: up to 72 degrees

Oakland: 74 degrees

Santa Rosa: up to 76 degrees

San Jose: up to 77 degrees

To the south of the Bay Area, southern Monterey County and the Santa Lucia Range in Big Sur could see temperatures in the 80s.

“Even this morning on the Big Sur coast, we’ve seen some stations start the day at 76,” Diaz said. “To start the day at 76 that’s a sign we’re going to get into the 80s. If this were a summer setup, we’d very easily be getting into the 90s.”

Diaz explained that with the sun starting to go down at 4:30 p.m., there’s less daylight and solar warming, preventing temperatures from getting too hot. 

“If this high pressure were set up earlier in the season, we’d be talking about much higher temps but because we’re so close to the solstice and days are shorter it’s not as warm as it could be if this occurred earlier in the year,” he said

The high pressure is keeping conditions dry and the Bay Area hasn’t seen significant rain since Nov. 9. There’s a weak signal for rain on Monday, but on Wednesday morning, weather models showed that only the North Bay may get some sprinkles.

“As we look at models it’s trending away from rain in our region,” said, Diaz, adding that there’s a more promising outlook for rain in a week and a half.