Has it been this hot before in San Diego?

By the numbers: This summer's longest hot streak was 11 days at or above 80°F at the airport, according to NOAA data.

• In 2018, we had 17 straight days, and in 2022 we had 15 straight days, according to NOAA.

Yes, but: We've now tied the record for the longest stretch of 90°F or hotter days in the past decade.

• The previous record was four days at the end of September 2020.
• The airport hit 95° on Sunday and Monday and was above 90° on Tuesday and Wednesday too.

Nighttime lows are also not very low.

• August averaged a low of about 70°, making for steamy nights and even muggier mornings.
• That's the second-highest August average low in the past decade, behind 2018's 73°.

Context: Both El Niño and climate change tend to tip the balance in favor of heat like this, Tom Corringham, a research economist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, told Axios.

• Higher air pressure has kept the air warm and helped suppress the marine layer, he said.
  
• Meanwhile, climate change raises the temperature baseline. So when there's a weather event like this one, the average temperatures are already higher "making heat extremes more likely and often more intense," he said.