The record-breaking heat that has pushed California’s electrical grid to the breaking point for more than a week is almost over but it’s a sign of things to come. Scientists say a warming planet will lead to hotter, longer and more wildfire-plagued heat waves. California is just the latest casualty in a year of sometimes deadly heat waves that swept from Pakistan and India to Europe, China and other areas of the U.S. As California set temperature records this week, the state’s power grid struggled to keep the lights on. The remnants of a hurricane arriving Friday in Southern California are expected to bring heavy rain and cooler temperatures.
Scientists are reluctant to attribute any specific weather event, such as Hurricane Kay, now downgraded to a tropical storm as it heads into California, to global warming. But they say heat waves are exactly the type of change that will become more common.
Temperatures hit an all-time high in Sacramento of 116 degrees on Tuesday. Many other locations hit record highs for September and even more set daily high marks. “That’s pretty much going to be the story for much of the Central Valley and much of Southern California,” Ullrich said. “This kind of exponential growth in the number of extreme heat days. If you tie those all together, then you end up with heat waves like we’ve experienced.”
Air conditioning puts the biggest strain on power sources during a heat wave and operators of the electrical grid called for conservation and warned of the threat of power outages as usage hit an all-time high Tuesday, surpassing a record set in 2006. “Part of the country that’s getting hit worst is the Southwest and Western United States,” Overpeck said. “It is a global poster child for the climate crisis. And this year, this summer, it’s really the Northern Hemisphere has been just an unusually hot and wildfire-plagued hemisphere.”
Two people were killed in the fire that erupted last Friday in the Northern California community of Weed at the base of Mount Shasta. Two others died trying to flee in their car from a fire in Riverside County that was threatening 18,000 homes.
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