Since Sunday, Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) has been temporarily shutting down the power grid for tens of thousands of Northern California customers, in the face of forecasts including “low humidity and gusty winds of up to 60 MPH.” These are the kinds of weather conditions from which wildfires arise. PG&E says it is hoping to help lessen the chances of a repeat of last year’s terrible fires. According to KQED, six California counties had their power cut on Sunday, affecting 59,000 residents.
PG&E said it's monitoring conditions in Butte, Sierra, Placer, Nevada, Plumas and Yuba counties and could turn off power in those communities, too.
The winds have dropped since Sunday, and, while the arid conditions continue Monday, PG&E says that they will be bringing service back.
"Restoration timing will depend on weather conditions and any repairs needed to PG&E's electrical equipment," PG&E said in a statement.
These conditions are not an anomaly anymore, and they will not be disappearing.
Much of the heat that’s gripped California and hastened the spread of deadly wildfires recently is due to a strange but familiar shift in the jet stream — one that’s haunted the West with threatening fire conditions in the past and could cause more hot, dry spells in the future, especially with a changing climate.
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California’s fire season, most fundamentally, is saddled with higher temperatures — with or without a heat wave, scientists say. The greenhouse gases emitted from cars, power plants and factories, which trap sunlight and warm the atmosphere, have created baseline conditions that are more hospitable to wildfire. Water loss from soil and plants is generally up while snowmelt and river flows are down.
PG&E made the announcement that they would begin what they call “proactively turning off power for safety” last week, along with these other measures:
- Wildfire Safety Operations Center: A state-of-the-art operations center to monitor potential fire threats across PG&E’s service area in real time and coordinate prevention and response efforts.
- Advanced Weather Forecasting: A network of weather stations throughout high fire-risk areas to provide improved awareness of fire danger conditions and better predict where extreme fire danger could occur.
- Enhanced Vegetation Management: PG&E is accelerating the vegetation and safety work that is part of the Community Wildfire Safety Program in extreme fire-threat areas to reduce the risk of vegetation coming into contact with lines.
All of those folks bothered by the “liberal elite” living on the coasts and what they think are our Chinese climate-change conspiracies better get used to saying words like quinoa and grilling asparagus, because those liberal elites are going to be moving inland sooner than later.
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