Why is it still so damn hot? (cont'd)

L.A.'s blistering weather pattern is entering its third month, but temperatures are expected to moderate over the next few days (normal downtown high for this time of year is 81). Today, however, is hot - at last check 89 degrees downtown and 91 outside my office in Westwood. So what the heck is going on? Well, what had been a cooler-than-normal year suddenly flipped a switch in August. From the LAT:

In the last two months, L.A. has been in the throes of a high-pressure system. That has conspired with a low-pressure system just offshore to bring hot and muggy weather. "You have the high-pressure system, where the air is circulating clockwise, and the low-pressure system, where it's turning counterclockwise," [said] Bill Patzert, a climatologist for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "So not only is it bringing us the warm air from the high desert, but the moist air from the Gulf of California and the Pacific." Though there should be a cool-down beginning Wednesday, October, like September, is generally also a heat-wave month. It also marks the beginning of the Santa Ana wind season.