HEAT WAVE, FIRES IN SO CAL

We're having a heat wave...temperature was 107 degrees here in Claremont Monday – 122 record-setting degrees in Palm Springs, California -- an hour auto drive east.   The highest temperatures I recall experiencing were 115-116 a couple days years ago in Phoenix/Scottsdale, Arizona. 

Hot days like even the lower temperatures we're having now generally didn't occur until three or four weeks later in the year if we had them at all.    Do you suppose this might be one more indicator of global warming and/or climate change?  Is there any question!

Fires we don’t usually experience until fall started, also, yesterday – in communities west of where I live – ground growth, shrubs and trees are a tinderbox due to our drought.  The cause is thought to be due to a car crash which led to a second fire with both continuing to spread closer together for a massive out-of-control burn. 

Driving on an afternoon errand I could see the blue sky was being swallowed by the darkening reddish brown smoky clouds moving toward our city which they had reached by the time I arrived home.  We're not threatened by fire but the air pollution is unhealthy so I'll be staying indoors.

Cities west, Asuza and Duarte (home of City of Hope Medical Center but not reported as threatened) are the communities whose foothill residences edge into the mountainsides burning.   Evacuations of people, animals...firefighters on the ground...helicopter water drops...planes spreading fire retardants.  Wild animals, including bears, deer, smaller creatures... leaving the forests...fleeing to neighborhoods.  So far no homes lost.  Concern the wind velocity might increase or direction might change through the night.   

The electric power grid has been down in some other Los Angeles County areas.  One area's residents are reported to be enraged to be without power due to a "planned outage" on this record-setting predicted hottest day.  Some resident's complain they didn't even get an advance notice others report having been given.  I can identify with their protests as the same failure to notify me has happened twice in recent years.  I understand needed preventative work, but doing so on this specific day doesn't make sense?

Other southwestern states are being clobbered by similar drought effects.  This is what we experience plus our earthquakes much as other states are primarily subjected to tornadoes, massive flooding, hurricanes, winter’s freezing snows.  

                                                  

Ella Fitzgerald is one of my favorite jazz female vocalists who recorded this Irving Berlin song with Enoch Light’s arrangement in 1958.   This song was introduced in the 1933 musical show As Thousands Cheer by Ethel Waters – the song subsequently was featured in several movies and recorded by numerous singers.

SOUTHWEST IS COOKIN' !

Comments here began to be moderated early this year which had not previously been done on this blog as visitors may have noticed.    Further comment screening efforts will regrettably necessarily be initiated.   

Anonymous spammers continue to write unrelated or palavering general comments in an effort to piggyback promotional and/or commercial web links soliciting readers to their site. Any comment with such links generally never is accepted for publication.     The reality they fail to recognize is that if their often nonsensical language was allowed to publish this would only serve to stigmatize their site as one that readers would not want to visit, or certainly wouldn’t consider engaging with for business purposes.  So, they waste their efforts.

Even though their leaching lingo never actually publishes on the Internet, I have better things to do with my time than bothering with periodically deleting their pollution from my computer.    But the necessity of this process has served to dampen my personal blogging enthusiasm which partially accounts for my decreased activity.    

SOUTHWEST IS COOKIN’!

Weather is setting records for 3-digit temperatures in the U. S.  Southwest.    Gradually increasing heat this past week peaked at 104 F degrees the last day of June as we slowly begin our descent toward more normal 2-digit numbers where I live in Southern California.    We’re significantly below normal rain and snow pack levels which has had our State at increased fire risk for several months to a degree we typically don’t see until late summer into fall.  

Fires are already burning in various California locales with the yellowing smoke-filled clouds rolling above mountains north of me noted in the sky on a recent afternoon.   None of California fires have been so tragic with lives lost as late news reports tonight from Arizona in home-owner evacuated Yarnell, near Prescott (a favored location of mine) north of Phoenix, where the wildfire took at least 19 firefighters lives as reported by the BBC.

 

Having lived in environs with dry heat and those with humid heat I can attest to having more tolerance for dry heat in higher temperatures, but hot is hot.    When I heard Phoenix , Arizona had reached 120 F degrees yesterday, I was reminded when the top reading I had experienced while living there years ago was 115 F degrees that  I had  concluded then I wanted nothing hotter.

The hottest temperature ever recorded on earth is 134 F degrees.    Death Valley’s temperature Sunday is up for debate between 128 F degrees and 129.9 F degrees due to a difference in thermometer readings but will be established later this Monday morning the Los AngelesTimes reports. 

Those of us living in Southern California have been spared any power shortages or outages so far as our summer begins.    Alternative home energy sources are becoming more cost effective.  Currently we’re told that solar roof panels may be viable if our monthly residential electric bill is $150 or more.   

Meanwhile for our electricity usage there are numerous energy conservation practices recommended for businesses and individuals.   Most residents routinely limit power usage during the peak daytime heat periods including using our major appliances such as washer, dryer, dishwasher only in the early morning or in the evening, keeping our air conditioners at slightly higher settings.  

Our nuclear power plant, San Onofre, located along the Pacific Coast between Los Angeles and San Diego has been permanently shut down as reported in The New York Times.   There has been much controversy as Southern California Edison Company pressed to resume the plant’s partial operation following their safety assessment of the radiation leakage problem status.     What impact this closure may have on the electric power generation for our future use remains to be seen though electric company rate increases may be anticipated.   Job losses have become a reality with the first 600 terminations. 

Presently we ratepayers are still saddled with costs of San Onofre so who should pay – customers or stockholders?   What about Mitsubishi “…for generator design and construction flaws…”?  These are questions raised by Morgan Lee, Business Writer at U-T San Diego, which have significant import to me.    Comments noting the California Public Utilities Commission as “…not being in the business of protecting ratepayers...” is a view that raises more, but not new, troubling questions.