Remote Surveillance Trailer in Redondo Beach, CA

A potentially dangerous heat wave is forecast to broil Southern California this week, boosting the mercury at least 20 degrees above normal, potentially toppling temperature records and raising concerns about an earlier start to the fire season.

After a mild start to the week, the region will start warming up on Wednesday with temperatures in the high 70s and low 80s across much of Los Angeles County. But the real heat will hit Thursday and Friday with temperatures reaching into the 90s along the coast and in the valleys with some areas reaching 100 degrees, according to the National Weather Service.

“Typically for March, the average high temperatures are in the upper 60s to mid-70s depending on where you are in the L.A. area, so this does put us a good 20 to 30 degrees above normal for this time of year,” said Ryan Kittell, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard.

The heat is expected to topple several daily temperature records across the region with some locations potentially breaking the all-time record for the month of March, according to the weather service.

Many coast and valley areas could see heat advisories on Thursday and Friday as temperatures climb. By Friday, downtown L.A. is expected to hit 98 degrees. It’s forecast to be 98 degrees in Burbank, 97 in Long Beach and 93 at Los Angeles International Airport, Kittell said.

The story is the same south of Los Angeles. Temperatures are forecast to hit 100 degrees in Anaheim, 96 degrees in Irvine and 85 degrees along the coast in San Clemente and 87 degrees in Oceanside. In San Bernardino and Riverside counties, temperatures are expected to linger in the mid- to high 90s with the mercury rising to 95 degrees in Lake Elsinore, 96 degrees in San Bernardino, 97 degrees in Palm Springs and 100 degrees in Thermal.

Temperatures are forecast to cool by a few degrees over the weekend, but it’s expected to stay hot for at least the early part of next week, Kittell said.

“The one saving grace is that overnight lows are expected to be in the upper 50s and 60s, which is still well above normal, but at least there will be several hours of overnight relief,” the weather service wrote in its forecast.

The exceptional warm-up follows a drier end to winter across Southern California. At this point, experts say, even if a fire starts, the fuels aren’t dry enough to cause a massive conflagration.

But the heat will “certainly accelerate the natural curing process where plants start to really lose their moisture,” Kittell said.

The continued heat is also likely to further diminish the state’s snowpack. The snowpack acts as a natural water storage system for California, and ideally when the region’s climate shifts from cold to warm and dry, the snow gradually melts down from rivers and creeks to fill reservoirs over a period of months.

If the snowpack melts too fast, the surge of water can overwhelm rivers and infrastructure, leading to flooding and water supply shortages later in the season.

The northern Sierra is currently at 34% of average and the southern Sierra 76% of average, down even further from last week when data showed significant losses following a late February heat wave.

California relies on the Sierra snowpack for about 30% of its water. But it’s not all bad news. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power reported on Tuesday that the overall snowpack in the eastern Sierra was holding at 100% of normal as of March 1.

There is no rain in the forecast over the next two weeks, but there’s still some potential for moisture in April and May, and that could boost the snowpack and keep fire season at bay a little longer, Kittell said.

“I don’t think we’re at the point right now where there’s a real high fire risk ... but if this heat lingers for a long time and we don’t get anymore rain, then the fire season might come earlier rather than later,” he said.

REDONDO BEACH, Calif. – Redondo Beach and other L.A.-area beach cities scored historic highs on the Gallup National Health and Well-Being Index (WBI) despite national declines, indicating that the Beach Cities continue to be among the healthiest places to live in the nation, the Beach Cities Health District (BCHD) has revealed.

The combined 2025 score of 69.5 for Redondo, Hermosa Beach and Manhattan Beach was the Beach Cities’ highest ever and substantially outpaced the national average score of 60.1, the BCHD said Feb. 2.

Notably, Manhattan Beach's 2025 score of 71.6 was the highest community measurement ever recorded by Gallup among the more than 1,500 community scores since WBI measurement began in 2008. The previous high was also recorded by Manhattan Beach with a 70.6 index in 2023.

The WBI surveys adults nationwide on five elements of well-being: career, community, financial, physical and social. These five anchors contribute to the overall WBI score; a high score means a life well-lived. The Beach Cities have had improvements in all five elements of well-being in the past 10 years, amid national declines.

“The Beach Cities are outpacing the U.S. across most metrics, and their excellent improvement over time – despite a high starting point – has been impressive,” Dan Witters, Gallup’s research director of the Well-Being Index, said.

Gallup, on behalf of Beach Cities Health District (BCHD), has administered the WBI nine times since 2010. The 2025 WBI data was collected last fall and is weighted and adjusted based on demographic statistics and sample size.

Witters, who has managed the WBI since 2009, presented the WBI findings to the BCHD Board of Directors on Jan. 28.

The report also showed that awareness and public opinion of BCHD itself has improved over the past five years. Since 2020, awareness of the Health District has improved from 67% to 71%, with 57% expressing a favorable opinion of the District – a two-percentage point increase since 2020.

Among the other report’s other findings:

More information about the Beach Cities WBI scores is available at www.bchd.org/impact.

REDONDO BEACH, CA -- Redondo Beach native Madison Chock and her husband, Evan Bates, won the silver medal in the ice dancing competition at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy Wednesday.

The couple, who have been a skating pair for 15 years and have been married since June, 2024, brought home a final combined score of 224.3. France’s Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron claimed gold with a score of 225.82, while Canada’s Piper Gilles and Paul Poirer took bronze with a score of 217.74.

Chock and Bates are the reigning and three-time World and Grand Prix Final champions, as well as the reigning and seven-time U.S. champions; however, this is their first time medaling at the Olympics, according to Yahoo Sports.

Chock and Bates finished with 224.39 and a bittersweet silver medal after having lost just four times in the four years since they finished fourth at the Beijing Games.

Their second-place finish was somewhat controversial.

Cizeron made several mistakes, including a glaring one during his twizzle sequence, while Chock and Bates were nearly perfect. Yet the French judge favored the French skaters by nearly eight points in the free dance, while five of the nine judges favored the American team. The other three that gave top marks to Guillaume and Cizeron did so by a slim margin.

“I feel like in life, sometimes you can feel like you do everything right and it doesn't go your way, and that's life in sports,” said Bates, who along with Chock won a second straight gold medal in the team event earlier in the Winter Games. “It's a subjective sport. It is a judged sport. But I think one fact that is indisputable is that we delivered our best. We skated our best.”

The Canadian team of Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier earned the bronze medal with 217.74 points, pulling away from the Italian team of Charlene Guignard and Marco Fabbri and the British duo of Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson with a deeply emotional free skate.

“I usually prefer Guillaume and Laurence,” Fabbri said, speaking candidly following the medal ceremony. “But today, in my opinion, they didn’t skate so well. So I think Madison and Evan would have deserved to win.”

Chock and Bates skated to an orchestral version of “Paint it Black” from the dystopian sci-fi show “Westworld.” They turned in the kind of program that they have spent the last 15 years together working toward. Every movement seemed to be in perfect harmony, and the flamenco-styled choreography had the crowd clapping along with them.

The only question left was whether the husband-wife team had done enough to earn the one medal that has eluded them.

It looked as if Beaudry and Cizeron gave them an opening with a bobble on their twizzles. But they soon settled into their program, set to the soundtrack from “The Whale,” and moved as if they were under water with a marvelous degree of refined elegance.

As their winning score was read, Chock and Bates joined the crowd inside the Milano Ice Skating Arena in applauding them.

Then, an hour later, Chock was fighting back tears in a tunnel far from the ice.

“It's definitely a bittersweet feeling at the moment,” she said. “We have had the most incredible year — fifteen years on the ice together. First Olympics as a married couple. And we delivered four of our best performances this week. I think we're really proud of how we handled ourselves here and what we accomplished.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.