Yesterday marked the 148th anniversary of an astounding weather event.
California, like other regions, experiences occasional hot, dry winds; that is, when the air heats up due to downslope compressional heating. In Southern California these are called “Santa Ana winds,” while in Colorado, “Chinook winds” and in Bavaria, “Föhn winds.” In the deserts of North Africa, the Arabic word “Simoon” applies.
What causes these winds? Short answer: insolation, advection and the adiabatic heating process. Sorry, Al, you can’t blame this event on SUVs or carbon footprints.
June 17, 1859 – The only ‘simoon’ ever to occur in the United States
is reported by a United States Coast Survey vessel off Goleta. A
northwest wind brings scorching temperatures of 133 degrees between
1:00 and 2:00 that afternoon. Birds fall from the sky, crops shrivel
and cattle die under the shade of oak trees.
The record 133° temperature has been discredited since that time due to the thermometer having been in direct sunlight. However this vivid description from A History of the Aguajitos Ranch paints a picture that the temperature must have come very close to that:
THE SUN COMES UP bright that day. It is a Friday-June 17, 1859. There
is a little breeze from the northeast, a clear sky, and the promise of
a warm day. The morning temperatures are normal, 75-to-80 degrees,
with an offshore breeze that prevents the ocean from having a cooling
effect.By noon, people begin to notice something unusual is happening. The
temperature has quickly risen to almost 100 degrees and the mountain
breeze is becoming stronger and stronger. About 1 pm a heavy blast of
hot air sweeps through the Goleta Valley from the direction of Santa
Ynez Peak, driving even the hardiest into the shelter of their homes
and filling them with terror; they think the end of the world has
come.The superheated air continues to pour down on the coast for the next
hour. By 2 pm the temperature is an incredible 133 degrees! Many of
the people take refuge behind the thick walls of Daniel Hill’s adobe,
who is owner of Rancho La Goleta, where they pray fervently for the
oppressive heat to be lifted.For the next three hours the temperature hovers at 130 degrees; by 5
pm it has cooled off only slightly, to 122 degrees. The inhabitants
wonder if this will ever come to an end. Then suddenly, as fast as it
has come, the hot breeze dies and a cool marine breeze washes over the
land. By 7 pm the temperature is a comfortable 77 degrees and the
half-baked citizens emerge from their houses to see what damage has
occurred.‘Birds had plummeted dead from the sky; others had flown into wells
seeking cooler air and drowned,’ says Walker Tompkins, describing the
event in his book, Goleta the Good Land. ‘A fisherman in a rowboat
made it in to the Goleta sandspit with his face and arms blistered as
if he had been exposed to a blast furnace.’‘Calves, rabbits and cattle died on their feet,’ adds a government report.