ORIGINAL HEADLINE · E&E News · 2026-04-30 — “Marine Heat Wave Could Fuel More Extreme Weather In The West” · read source
NEWSROOM, ANYWHERE — Good morning. The marine heatwave off the California coast has now been classified Category 5, which is a category I would explain except I have explained it three times this season already and we are barely out of April.
Category 5 means the warmest 1 percent of marine temperatures ever recorded for that location at that time of year. The waters off Monterey are running at, give or take, the temperature of a swimming pool that nobody has cleaned. The kelp is responding by dying. The sea otters are responding by moving north. The surfers are responding, per a Venice Beach correspondent, with the words “sick.”
I sipped the oat milk. It is room temperature. The room is also a Category 5.
The marine heatwave stretches roughly 5,000 miles, from Micronesia to California. Five thousand miles is a number I am told to be alarmed by. I am, on a scale of one to ten where I have been alarmed since 2009, alarmed.
The wider context: April 2026 was the second-warmest April on record across the continental United States. Tomato prices are up 100 percent year on year. Emperor penguins were just downgraded to “Endangered” on the Red List. The fern is, as ever, dying.
The good news, which Editorial has insisted I include, is that May Day surfing conditions in Santa Cruz are reportedly excellent. Tomorrow’s report: same story, slightly worse. As ever.
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