California school sports heat policy
CIF’s policy, written as a requirement, has schools use WBGT but puts each district in one of three heat categories, so no single table covers the state. How to read these labels
- Association
- CIF (California Interscholastic Federation)
- Label
- Policy on file: no single statewide table
- Reading it uses
- WBGT
- Statewide table
- No single statewide table
- Last checked
- September 4, 2026
What CIF’s document says
CIF’s policy opens “As per CA State Law AB 1653 and CIF Bylaw 503.K … all CIF member schools must adhere to the CIF Heat Illness Prevention and Heat Acclimatization Policies” and says “The CIF requires that schools use the WBGT”. CIF also says “due to its diverse climate across the state, California encompasses all three categories”, and it assigns a category to each district and private school individually rather than statewide. Because that assignment is CIF’s, not ours, no California table is shown here: get your district’s category, and its thresholds, from CIF.
We don’t have a single sourced threshold table for California, and we won’t put another state’s numbers in its place: regional tables differ by several degrees. Follow the policy your school, district or league has adopted. For general heat guidance at your field, open the map.
CIF Extreme Heat and Air Quality Policy (CIF Constitution and Bylaws 2026-27)This is a plain-language summary to help you plan. It is not legal advice, and it is not the association’s document. Associations revise these policies often. Confirm what currently applies with your school, district or association.
What else to know
- CIF’s cancel rule covers games as well as practices: depending on the school’s category, it is “mandated” that “practice/games be canceled, or delayed until cooler” once the WBGT exceeds that category’s level.
- CIF says preseason practice “shall begin with a five-day acclimatization period for all Fall student-athletes”, late arrivals included: no more than one on-field practice a day, each no longer than two hours, with football pads added in stages.
- CIF says the school “will have available a method to institute whole-body cooling”, such as an ice tub, a “taco tarp” or ice towels, easy to reach at all practice and contest venues.
- For aquatic sports, CIF says that for practice only, schools may use the NFHS water-temperature rule “in place of the CIF Outdoor Activity Guidelines”.
How to read this
CIF’s document does not give one WBGT table for the whole state, so none is shown here. The summary above says why. Open the document to find the table or chart that applies to your school.
Before you rely on this
- This page summarizes CIF’s document. It does not replace it. If they differ, go by the document and by the policy your school or league has adopted.
- Confirm what currently applies with your school, district or association. Many schools adopt their own version.
- Any WBGT number WetBulbTracker shows is a modeled estimate for planning, not an official reading. Where a policy calls for an on-site reading, that reading governs.
- This page does not replace an athletic trainer’s judgment.
Live heat readings in California
- Anaheim heat and WBGT
- Bakersfield heat and WBGT
- Chula Vista heat and WBGT
- Fontana heat and WBGT
- Fremont heat and WBGT
- Fresno heat and WBGT
- Huntington Beach heat and WBGT
- Irvine heat and WBGT
- Long Beach heat and WBGT
- Los Angeles heat and WBGT
- Modesto heat and WBGT
- Moreno Valley heat and WBGT
- Oakland heat and WBGT
- Oxnard heat and WBGT
- Riverside heat and WBGT
- Sacramento heat and WBGT
- San Bernardino heat and WBGT
- San Diego heat and WBGT
- San Francisco heat and WBGT
- San Jose heat and WBGT
- Santa Ana heat and WBGT
- Santa Clarita heat and WBGT
- Stockton heat and WBGT
Suggest a correction
Associations update these documents, often before the fall season. If something here is wrong or out of date, send us a link to the current document and we will re-check it.
Suggest a correction