Heat wave grips much of California

LOS ANGELES - Much of California baked in triple-digit heat Monday and forecasters said the heat wave would last until midweek, and possibly into the Labor Day weekend.

The dangerously hot temperatures were the result of high pressure over the Great Basin, the National Weather Service said.

Excessive-heat warnings or heat advisories stretched from the interior of southwestern California northward through the Central Valley and westward to all but the immediate shoreline.

In the steaming inland region east of Los Angeles, the city of Fontana offered citizens cooling centers in five neighborhood community facilities while nearby Redlands offered three. Monsoonal flow of moist air triggered scattered thunderstorms.

High temperatures included 115 degrees in Palm Springs, 111 in the Woodland Hills area of Los Angeles, 112 at Stockton in the northern San Joaquin Valley and 110 in several Sacramento Valley locations and at Paso Robles in the Central Coast's San Luis Obispo County.

At the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley, the 38,000-student Kern High School District canceled all outdoor and indoor athletic activities, the Bakersfield Californian reported (http://bit.ly/2vyvged).

Up the valley, Fresno Unified School District coaches were told use caution with student athletes, taking frequent hydration and shade breaks, the Fresno Bee said (http://bit.ly/2wNk4hY). Nearby Clovis Unified high school football teams were barred from practice in pads or helmets and shade-water breaks were required every 10 minutes, district spokeswoman Kelly Avants told the newspaper.

Fresno's four cooling centers were being kept open all week, and bus rides to the centers were free.

Weather was abruptly different along the Southern California shoreline, where a strong marine inversion and light onshore flow kept beaches much cooler, with clouds and fog that lingered well into the afternoon. Temperatures were in the 70s.