A separate LA Times article explained that the humidity is due to lingering effects of a recent hurricane/tropical storm.

"Forecasters attributed the punishing humidity to the remnants of Tropical Storm Iselle moving over the state, as well as unusually warm ocean temperatures due to a combination of a months-long marine heat wave, a powerful El Niño and climate change.

"Dew points in the Los Angeles Basin have been “really high,” hovering around 70 degrees in many places, with a few coastal areas like Redondo Beach and Torrance reaching a dew point of 73 to 75 on Friday, said Ryan Kittell, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard. The metric measures the moisture content in the air."

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-08-28/forget-f...

The sea surface temperature anomaly is indeed pretty high right now near the Los Angeles and San Diego coast.