California Will Sizzle This Weekend, Raising Specter of Outages
- Heat grips West from Oregon to Arizona as temperatures rise
- Widespread 100-degree readings will sweep across California
California will face some of the year’s hottest weather starting this weekend, which will likely tax its electric grid.
An excessive heat watch reaches from Oregon to Arizona, covering a large part of central and coastal California, according to the National Weather Service. Temperatures could reach into the 100s Fahrenheit (38 Celsius) across much of central California and reach into the 90s in Los Angeles.
“They are going to have a huge power demand right across the grid and they may need to go with rolling blackouts,” said Jim Rouiller, lead meteorologist with the Energy Weather Group. “All the major urban centers in California are going to have intense heat wave conditions unabated right through the weekend into next week.”
In anticipation of the heat wave, the state’s main grid operator has called for restricted maintenance on power plants and high-voltage transmission lines to ensure they’re available as temperatures rise.