Famous for its temperate climate, the GoletaValley was nonetheless the site of North America’s only simoon, a scorching hot wind that took the temperature to 133 degrees in the middle of the 19th century.

The morning of June 17, 1859, dawned sunny and pleasant, with the temperature reaching about 80 degrees by noon. Then, about 1 p.m., according to Walker Tompkins in his book, “Goleta the Good Land,” a “blast of superheated air” came from the direction of Santa Ynez Peak and hit the Goleta Valley, alarming the residents and sending them scurrying for cover inside thick-walled buildings.

By 2 p.m. the temperature had reached an incredible 133 degrees, with the northwest wind bringing “great clouds of impalpable dust,” Tompkins wrote.

People reportedly took refuge behind the 3-foot-thick walls of the Daniel Hill adobe, the casa grande at Dos Pueblos Ranch, and the adobe winery at San Jose Vineyard among other places.

Rabbits, cattle, snakes and deer died on their feet according to a government report, and fruit fell from trees to the ground, scorched on the windward side.

Birds fell dead from the sky and others flew into wells in search of cooler air and drowned.

About 5 p.m. the unimaginably searing, hot wind died down, the report said, the thermometer “cooled off” to 122 degrees. Finally, by 7 p.m. the air had dropped to 77 degrees.

The Goleta Valley held the continental record for heat for decades until 1913 when Death Valley recorded a temperature of 134 degrees.

Goleta Scrapbook is sponsored by Santa Cruz Markets