For the second time this year, Southern California will bake in unseasonably warm weather over the next few days.
During the second week in February, places like San Diego, Los Angeles and spots in between set record highs ranging from 80 to 93 degrees. This helped spark a brush fire and subsequent evacuation in Laguna Beach. Mother Nature will kick it up a notch for this next round of heat.
The National Weather Service is forecasting highs in the mid-90s to 103 degrees Wednesday, Thursday and Friday for portions of the Los Angeles and San Diego areas. These locations include Riverside, San Bernardino, Ontario, Corona, Escondido, El Cajon, Huntington Beach, Santa Ana, Anaheim, Irvine, Fullerton, Mission Viejo, Thousand Oaks, Simi Valley, San Luis Obispo, Inglewood, Pasadena, Pomona, Northridge and Burbank. Other areas like Long Beach and the Malibu coast will see highs in the lower 90s.
These temperatures are more than 20 degrees above normal for many of these locations, and daily records may be tied or broken in some areas, especially on Friday, which will probably be the hottest day during the streak.
Truckers can take care of themselves by wearing light-colored, comfortably fitting clothes in these hot spots. Spending as little time as possible outside their trucks will also help prevent potential heat illness, as will taking breaks in cool, air-conditioned spaces.
The heat can also be rough on trucks and trailers, so drivers should make sure their rigs are in tip-top shape before heading to Southern California the next few days. According to FreightWaves SONAR data, there’s plenty of freight available there. The Ontario freight market, near the upper left corner of the chart above, ranks second behind Atlanta in the Outbound Tender Volume Index (OTVI). This tells us that there’s a high amount of loads being offered electronically by shippers in this market, leading to opportunities for carriers with enough capacity to send drivers there to grab loads.
Major lanes of concern
- Interstate 5 from Santa Clarita, California, to the California-Mexico border.
- Interstate 8 from San Diego to the interstate junction in Arizona.
- Interstate 10 from Los Angeles to Phoenix.
- Interstate 15 from the I-8 junction in California to Las Vegas.
Click here for more FreightWaves articles by Nick Austin.
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