Missing: Blistering Summer Heat in L.A.

This summer's relatively low temperatures may have Angelenos wondering if we're truly in the middle of global warming or, instead, the shadow of some nuclear winter. While it's not exactly been like summering in foggy San Francisco, we have been blessed with unusually temperate mercury readings, notes the L.A. Times' Hector Becerra.

"First came the 40 straight days from late May to the end of June," Becerra writes today, "when downtown L.A. had below-average temperatures every single day. Then July ended cooler than normal."

This may not be a boon to beach lovers who prefer to spend the summer tanning on the sand, but it's been a minor windfall to outdoor laborers and people trying to brake their air conditioning bills. The New York Times, coincidentally, last week ran a feature, "In New York, It's the Summer That Isn't," that similarly wondered aloud where the seasonal heat is.

"For just the second time in 140 years of record keeping," wrote Sam Roberts, "the temperature failed to reach 90 in either June or July." To counter climate-change skeptics, the piece quoted Hunter College geography professor William D. Soleck:

"'Ask them to visit Seattle,' he said, where a record temperature of 103 was recorded on Wednesday."