California Endures Worst Days Of Severe, Relentless Heat Wave

One of the longest, hottest heat waves in California history continues to beleaguer the state shattering temperature records and straining an already overtaxed power grid.

Meteorologists are warning that Tuesday, the sixth consecutive day of dangerously high temperatures , may bring the worst of a hot spell that’s already broken some daily, monthly and all-time heat records by large margins. 

While Southern California is now experiencing a slight drop in temperatures, Northern California’s heat wave is peaking, and many communities there could “potentially see their hottest day in recorded history this afternoon,” Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, said in a Twitter Spaces discussion  Tuesday.

“This will be essentially the worst September heat wave on record, certainly in Northern California and arguably for the state overall,” he continued. 

In the northeastern San Francisco Bay Area, Fairfield reached a staggering 117 degrees Fahrenheit on Monday, breaking the city’s all-time heat record. State capital Sacramento and other communities in the Central Valley are expected to hit similar temperatures Tuesday, likely smashing even more records.

Even the typically temperate San Francisco, which is often blanketed in fog, is under an excessive heat warning from the National Weather Service as temperatures reached into the 90s Monday and Tuesday.

Weather officials don’t expect Californians to get a break from the hot spell until Thursday.

With excessive heat comes excessive strain on California’s electrical grid, which has struggled in recent years to keep up with demand as climate change increases the severity, length and frequency of heat waves.

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has pled with residents to conserve energy, especially after 4 p.m., by cooling their homes early each day, closing blinds and windows, and then setting thermostats to 78 degrees or higher and avoiding the use of any large appliances. 

Residents will need to help with a “reduction in energy use that is two or three times greater than what we’ve seen so far as this historic heat wave continues to intensify,” Elliot Mainzer, the president and CEO of California’s power grid operator, said in a statement Monday.

The grid operator confirmed later Tuesday that there will be rolling blackouts that evening to deal with the excessive power demand.

Amid the lingering heat, several wildfires have erupted across the bone-dry state, nearly all of which is engulfed in a severe drought . As of Tuesday, two people have died in a 2,400-acre fire  in Riverside County, and two others have died in a nearly 4,300-acre fire  in Siskiyou County.