At 93 degrees, Lake Forest was the hottest spot in the United States.
"We’re about halfway through the rain season, so we’ve only got February and March, and they better be a miracle," said climatologist Bill Patzert.
"It’s been a hot summer, a hot fall, and even now in the midwinter.
Downtown L.A. sweated through its hottest Thanksgiving (92 degrees) since records began being kept.
Rapf said heavy Santa Ana winds helped fuel the fire, but that the dry brush made the situation even more dangerous.
The snow in the Sierra Nevada, California’s greatest mountain range, has been disappointing compared with last year’s record-breaking season.
"Unfortunately, the water content of the January snowpack is only slightly higher than it was in January 2015, while we were in the middle of a crippling statewide drought," John Leahigh, executive manager of water operations for the State Water Project, said in a statement.
The water content in the northern Sierra Nevada snowpack was only 30% of normal for this time of year; a year ago, officials recorded it at 182%.
"In the Sierra, we had 10 strong ‘atmospheric rivers’ that affected the northern and central Sierra last year," said Chris Johnston, meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Reno office.
The U.S. Forest Service has estimated that more than 102 million drought-stressed and beetle-ravaged trees have died across 7.7 million acres of California forest since 2010 — unprecedented in the recorded history of the Sierra.