The heat is on and records are expected to fall across the Bay Area today, the National Weather Service says. At 9 a.m. it was already above 80 degrees in many places and the Weather Service predicts and there's no real relief ahead until at least Saturday.

One of the records that obviously will fall in minutes is the 87 degree mark set in Oakland in 1976 and possibly the 94 degree record set at Oakland International in 1958. Just before 9 a.m. it already was 86 degrees in downtown Oakland.

Across the bay, Weather Service meteorologist Dan Qudgel said the historical high of 91 degrees set in San Francisco in 1970 is expected to fall. At 9 a.m., it was already 80 degrees, he said.

A record of 96 degrees set in San Jose, also in 1970, is expected to be broken today, the Weather Service says. In San Jose at 9 a.m. it was 77.

The forecast calls for temperatures in the 90s around San Francisco Bay and into triple digits in interior valleys. The heat's expected to continue Friday and isn't expected to weaken until well into the weekend, Qudgel said. Nights will remain warm, in the upper 60s.

"The odds are that the temperatures will relax a little bit Saturday and Sunday, but we're not highly confident that the heat will go away entirely," he said. "Generally, this type of heat wave lasts only a couple of days. But based on our observations, the upper atmosphere will remain warm and dry," he said.

The means that although the increasing heat in the Bay Area

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and interior will suck in cool air from the Pacific, but the hot air flowing in from the interior will overpower the Bay Area's traditional "vacuum cleaner effect," so temperatures should remain quite warm, Qudgel said. Those winds blowing into the Bay Area from the interior will be warm and extremely dry, adding to a most unpleasant day, the Weather Service adds.

Is this the first foreshock of global warming? No one knows, but Qudgel points out that May 15, 1970 was also a scorcher. A lot of records around the bay were sent then and they still stand, he said.