
Here’s a look at some of the heat’s effects in recent weeks across the West.
Californians preparing for rolling blackouts
Golden State residents have been told to prepare for possible blackouts as record demand threatens to outstrip power supply while heat records are being broken across the state.
California Independent Systems Operator Elliot Mainzer said projected demand is “at record levels, significantly increasing the likelihood of a rotation stop.”
The state saw record temperatures on Monday, reaching 114 degrees Fahrenheit in Sacramento, making it the hottest day on record for September. San Francisco International Airport hit his 97-degree mark, also his single-day record, and the city continues to receive heat advisories on Tuesday.
Further south, Death Valley could reach 125 degrees on Tuesday, matching the hottest temperature on record for September. (Despite unofficial readings of even higher temperatures, Death Valley only officially reached 124 degrees on Friday. The record for the month in September was set in 1950 in Mecca, California. It’s still below Earth’s all-time record for that moon of 126 degrees.)
In the event of a rotating outage in California this week, it could take at least 40 minutes each for power to be restored for the first set of affected customers and for the next group to lose power. Meinser assured customers that utility companies would try to keep the outages as short as possible, but operators expected a shortfall of between 400 and 3,400 megawatts between 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. on Tuesday. ing.
Four dead in wildfires in California
Fire officials have not yet determined who died in the fire or how they died.
The prolonged drought has left “huge amounts of dead fuel” behind, California Fire Battalion Chief John Haggie told CNN Sunday, calling the situation “extremely dangerous.”
“All these fires have a receptive fuel bed to burn,” he said. It could grow exponentially between
Arizona hiker killed, five injured
Unfortunately, one of the hikers, a man in his 20s, was pronounced dead after being taken to a hospital, said a spokesperson for the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office. Five others he was treated at Sparklos Trailhead.
CNN’s meteorologists Judson Jones, Jennifer Gray, and Monica Garrett, and CNN’s Cheri Mossberg, Nulan Salahie, Taylor Romine, and Aya Elamursi contributed to this report.
Source: www.cnn.com