70s at County Beaches and 80s Inland : The Weather? Warm, Hazy Once Again

Southern California’s weather this weekend will not even qualify as a variation on a familiar theme--it will be a repetition, forecasters said.

“And I don’t see much change for the next week,” said Dave Beusterien, a meteorologist with WeatherData Inc., which provides forecasts for The Times. “We’ll probably be singing the same song and same verses next week.”

In Orange County, that means late night and early morning clouds along the coast, hazy afternoons and high temperatures ranging from the 70s at the beaches to the middle 80s inland.

To the east, the mercury will climb well above 100 in the deserts, particularly around Palm Springs. Mountain areas will see highs in the 80s.

About a 20% chance of isolated afternoon and evening thunderstorms exists for the southern Sierra Nevada, San Gabriel and San Bernardino mountains and desert areas, Beusterien said.

“It’s just impossible to delineate where they might hit,” he said. “One day it might be the northern desert; one day the southern desert.”

Highs in Orange County on Thursday were generally a few degrees below normal for this time of year, except in San Clemente, where the sun broke through early, pushing the mercury to a county-high 82 degrees.

Elsewhere, Santa Ana and San Juan Capistrano recorded a high of 81 degrees, while El Toro was 78 and Newport Beach, under overcast skies most of the day, topped out at 69.

A stationary bubble of high pressure over the Arizona-New Mexico border is drawing the coastal cloud cover inland, keeping the immediate shoreline cool, but heating up the interior, Beusterien said. As a result, he said, “Don’t look for any great warm-up over the next few days. . . .”

That’s hardly encouraging news for beach-goers, who will find conditions less than ideal as the fog and low clouds are expected to linger until midday.

The surf is expected to be 2 to 3 feet and out of the southwest, with the water temperature ranging from 63 to 66 degrees.

In Laguna Beach, county health officials expect a stretch of beach closed for nearly a week because of a sewage spill to be reopened late today. Contamination resulting from last weekend’s 36,000-gallon spill improved enough for health officials to lift the swimming ban along part of the shoreline near Main Beach.

But a 400-yard stretch of beach, between Cleo and Legion streets, remained closed, pending the results of new bacteria testing later today.

“We are hopeful we can take down the signs and reopen the beach late today,” said Steven Wong, assistant director of the county’s Environmental Health Department.

Although health officials said there was some contamination from the spill, there is not a threat to public health if bathers and surfers stay out of the water, Wong said. So far, there have been no reports of gastrointestinal diseases in connection with the incident.