San Francisco Heat Wave Draws Crowds to Crissy Field, Golden Gate Bridge

Sunbathers packed the sand at Crissy Field East Beach on Tuesday, March 17, with the Golden Gate Bridge shimmering in the background, as San Francisco recorded its hottest start to March in at least two decades. Temperatures approached 90°F (32.2°C) across the Bay Area, pushing the city toward what reporters noted looked to tie the downtown March record of 87°F (30.5°C) set on March 11, 2005.

Dogs and sunbathers flocked to Crissy Field's shoreline on the north end of the city, where the scene was striking even by summer standards. Enrique Martinez carried his 11-year-old dog Pepe the length of the beach so the animal wouldn't have to walk on the hot sand. "It's unusual for San Francisco to get this hot this early," said Roger Gass, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in the Bay Area.

Dog walker Justyce Roliz was less conflicted about the conditions. "It feels like summer already in March. That's crazy, but I love it," she said. For resident Jessica Ling, the heat brought a familiar challenge: most San Francisco homes lack air conditioning. "We have our fans going, our windows open, but we try to be outside as much as we can," she said.

The last time the city came close to this kind of March warmth was in 2005, when downtown hit 87°F during a two-day heat wave. Before that, March 2004 brought a nearly weeklong stretch with highs around 80°F (26.7°C). Tuesday's readings put this week in rare company across more than two decades of local weather history.

The heat was not limited to San Francisco. Phoenix was expected to top 100°F (37.7°C) that week, a threshold it typically doesn't reach until early May and has never crossed before March 26. Las Vegas was tracking toward its hottest March stretch ever recorded, and records fell across Los Angeles and Southern California as well. The conditions formed a sharp contrast with the Midwest and East Coast, where powerful snowstorms grounded thousands of flights during the same stretch.