The consumption peak is expected for Monday, September 5, quite simply because it is a public holiday in the United States, it is Labor Day. The 40 million inhabitants of California are therefore preparing for a long weekend. It also means a lot of people on the roads. All this is not good in a heat wave. This Wednesday, August 30, the public authorities have therefore issued a whole series of instructions to limit electricity consumption. There are classic recommendations: avoid using high consumption appliances, such as lawn mowers, clothes dryers, turn off lamps that are useless, set the air conditioning above 25 degrees.
And then there is an unprecedented instruction: avoid charging electric vehicles. This recommendation is the subject of often ironic comments on social networks, since the same California, a few days ago, decided to ban the sale of gasoline vehicles from 2035. Critics have fun: in California , you are obliged to buy an electric car but you cannot recharge it. There would be no problem if the state’s electrical network did not show multiple signs of dilapidation. There is therefore a real risk that it will not meet demand, especially between 4 p.m. and 9 p.m. in the evening, the most tense schedule. Blackouts, local load shedding are possible, warned the electricity company.
The problem is that it will be really hot until Tuesday September 6th. “We’re going to cook”, say all the weather presenters. Records could be beaten, in California or in neighboring states, Nevada, Arizona for several days. In the suburbs of Los Angeles, we could approach 45°C, 10°C above the usual peaks for this season. Announcement 52°C in the famous Death Valley near Las Vegas. Las Vegas, where on September 1, it was already 34°C at 8 o’clock in the morning. Above all, night temperatures will remain very high, probably more than 30°C.
VIDEO: In California, the world’s tallest thermometer shows 108°F
The thermometer, an iconic monument in the middle of the southern Californian desert, shows the temperature as a heatwave strikes the western United States pic.twitter.com/AXB3fcU7lj
— AFP News Agency (@AFP) September 1, 2022
This heat dome is due to the presence of an anticyclone above the entire area. It is glued to the ground because the cool winds that come from the Pacific deviate to the North when they arrive inland. It’s a common occurrence in California, but it’s becoming more common. Knowing that this same part of the United States has already experienced very violent storms this summer, we are really faced with this now well-known translation of global warming: the multiplication of extreme weather phenomena.
Power grid officials aren’t the only ones worried. Hospitals are on alert: as always, fragile people can pay a heavy price for the heat wave. It is obviously recommended to avoid any physical activity. And the city of Los Angeles has opened nine refreshment centers to accommodate all those who are not feeling well in the heat. Firefighters are also on the alert. It’s the end of summer: everything is dry, there is no humidity, no dew. So the risk of fire is very high. While precisely, for once, the summer remained relatively calm on this front of the fires in the West of the United States: ten times less land destroyed than last year.