HOW HOT IS IT? GET THE RECORD BOOKS
One hot mess: Triple-digit temps combine with smoke from wildfires and risk of blackouts
A record-smashing heat wave sent temperatures in areas across the Bay Area well over 100 degrees Sunday, choking the region with the smoke of weeks’ worth of wildfires and putting more than 2 million customers under the threat of rolling blackouts as the state’s energy grid neared capacity.
By 3 p.m. Sunday, a high of 100 had been recorded in downtown San Francisco, unofficially smashing the old record of 92 degrees, set in 1904, according to the National Weather Service. Livermore had hit 108 degrees, Oakland 99 and San Jose 102 — all unofficial records. The highest temperature that meteorologists recorded as of early afternoon was in Hollister, where it hit 109 degrees.
The heat had triggered a Flex Alert from Cal ISO, the state’s energy grid managers, warning that rolling blackouts could be necessary if power demand — fueled largely by air conditioners switching on up and down the state — exceeded supply. As many as 2.3 million customers were scheduled for outages starting Sunday evening if consumers didn’t quickly reduce demand, managers said Sunday afternoon.
“Sunday is probably sizing up to be the most challenging day of the year,” California Independent System Operator Vice President Eric Schmitt said at a news conference. “I think it’s fair to say that without really significant conservation and help from customers today, we will have some rolling outages.”
Rolling blackouts were avoided Saturday evening after Cal ISO called a Stage 2 alert, warning that such outages were imminent if consumers didn’t reduce their energy usage. Regulators say residents should set their air conditioning to 78 degrees or higher, avoid using large appliances and turn off unnecessary lights to save energy.
At the same time, the stagnant, hot air was continuing the region’s run of especially dirty skies, with smoke from wildfires pressed down into the Bay Area by the high-pressure system. Air-quality readings across the Bay reached from moderate to unhealthy on Sunday, and a Spare the Air alert in effect since Aug. 18 had been extended through today.
By Sunday afternoon, National Weather Service meteorologist Duane Dykema said San Francisco’s high was the forecast’s key wild card for today, but he expected it and other coastal areas were likely to see only slight cooling.
“But you won’t have to go very far from the ocean to get hot temperatures,” Dykema said. “We’re not going to see enough cooling tomorrow that others will even notice.”
Forecasters expect heat to give way to gradual cooling after Tuesday, but they remained on guard. Late Sunday afternoon, the weather service officially declared a Red Flag Warning for this evening through
Wednesday morning, with gusty off-shore winds feeding hazardous fire conditions, lowering humidity levels further and possibly spreading smoky air from inland.
Firefighters continued battling the three major wildfire complexes feeding that smoke into the atmosphere, all three sparked by dry lightning strikes during the August heat wave.
As of Sunday morning, the SCU Lightning Complex, a series of fires burning in spots in Santa Clara, Alameda, Contra Costa, San Joaquin, Merced and Stanislaus counties, was 88% contained at more than 396,000 acres, making it the second-largest wildfire in recorded state history.
The LNU Lightning Complex, burning in Sonoma, Lake and Napa counties, was about 89% contained at more than 375.000 acres, making it the third-largest wildfire in state history.
The CZU Lightning Complex that ravaged the Santa Cruz mountains along the Santa Cruz and San Mateo coasts was about 68% contained, with more than 86,000 acres consumed.
Cal Fire said Sunday that more than 2 million acres had burned in California
since Jan. 1, a record since the agency began gathering such information in 1987.
Meteorologist Dykema said residents need to be especially careful about the cumulative effects of the weather and smoke.
“This is our third consecutive day of heat,” he said. “With heat events like this on multiple days, each successive day can cause more stress on the human body,
with potential health impacts.”
Bill Patzert, a retired climatologist from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said August is usually the hottest average month for most of California, but September “is the heat wave month.”
Patzert said the current condition is similar to what the state sees in October, November and December, when offshore winds from
the desert blow hot air to the Golden State coastline.
In Menlo Park, the typical Labor Day weekend sounds of laughter were nonexistent at sweaty Burgess Park.
No one played on the two ballfields, soccer fields, basketball and tennis courts. No screaming delight came from the empty children’s playground.
The pool complex did
not have the usual banter as swimmers came and went, 17 people at a time for 35-minute sessions.
Jakob Hesse, a Hillview Middle School sixth grader, was the lone skater braving the heat at the skatepark, but when a reporter found him Sunday, he was resting under the protection of a bay tree with his skateboard, helmet and pads to the side.
Jakob, 12, said he came out alone because his friends were “staying away from the heat instead of being out here where I’m getting baked.”
In Oakland’s Fruitvale district, Casey Cobb said he was handling strong customer demand at the Ale Industries brewery.
“This heat is unprecedented. We’ve got our space set up with socially distant tables and stools in our parking lot across the street,” Cobb said Sunday afternoon.
“Folks will get orders from our loading bay and then head across.”
Cobb, who lives in Concord, said he’d seen what looked like lower quality air during his commute in, but added that this weekend’s hot weather didn’t kept people away, with sales up 11% over last weekend: “Beer is the antidote, right?”
The weekend’s weather could be traced to a highpressure system in the North Pacific that has parked over the Great Basin in western Utah and Nevada, climatologist Patzert said.
“High-pressure systems are dominating all the way from Seattle to San Diego,” he said. “Get out the record book.”