California's Hellish 'Heat Dome' Turns the Bay Area Into an Oven

[Celerity]

Record-breaking temperatures, including staggering 120-degree forecasts for parts of the Bay Area, are walloping California and pushing its power grid to the brink.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/californias-hellish-heat-dome-sends-temperature-forecast-in-san-francisco-outer-bay-area-to-120-degrees



A historically brutal heat wave has pushed high temperatures in suburban San Francisco, often spared from extreme heat because of its coastal location, to be as scorching as the hottest place on earth Tuesday. The East Bay community of Danville, 30 miles east of San Francisco, was forecast to reach 120 degrees on Tuesday, the National Weather Service said. That’s just six degrees below the forecast for Death Valley in southern California, which has registered record-heat for September itself this week.

The blistering heat, which spans the whole state but has hit northern California hardest, has forced officials to beg residents to conserve energy. If not, authorities say they’ll be forced to inflict rotating electricity blackouts—a dangerous possibility as a majority of California's 39 million residents face high temperatures of at least 90 degrees on Tuesday. The state’s strained electrical grid is expected to use 51,033 megawatts Tuesday afternoon, easily surpassing its previous record of 50,270 megawatts set in 2006, the grid’s operator Elliot Mainzer said Monday.

Forecasted demand was likely to surpass energy available from the grid on Tuesday, suggesting blackouts would soon be needed. “California ISO is explicitly forecasting demand to exceed energy availability this afternoon,” tweeted Washington Post Meteorologist Matthew Cappucci. “In other words, the state will run out of power.”

Link to tweet

In order to avoid blackouts, Mainzer said there needed to be a reduction in energy use that is “two or three times greater” than what had previously been ordered over the weekend. That’s a tough ask when temperatures are at an all-time high, and residents were already limiting AC usage between 5 and 9 p.m. each day. “We never want to get to that point, of course, but we want everyone to be prepared and understand what is at stake,” Mainzer said in a statement.

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