The National Weather Service”s Upper Lake reporting station indicates that Lake County tied one high-temperature record on Saturday, July 22 and beat another on Sunday, July 23 when temperatures reached 105 degrees. Sunday”s temperature beat out the previous high temperature of 103 degrees from 1960.
Some county residents suffered power outages during the last few days. “These are heat-related outages,” said Pacific Gas and Electric Spokesperson Brian Swanson. “The heat combined with record demand for energy are overloading our transformers.”
The California Independent System Operator predicted a record power usage on Monday, July 24 of more than 52,000 megawatts and called for energy conservation if the state”s utilities are to continue service.
On the health front, county Public Health Officer Dr. Craig McMillan said his office received warning of the heat wave Monday from State Health Officer Dr. Mark Horton.
“We had some of the highest temperatures around,” McMillan said.
Despite this, Interim Director of Redbud Hospital”s Emergency Department Mary Donati reports that they did not treat any cases of heatstroke over the weekend. No numbers were available from Sutter Lakeside Hospital by press time.
Although temperatures remained high Monday, weather service forecasters said they were starting to see a break in the high pressure system that is settling hot air in the southwestern portion of the United States.
Forecasters predict that lower temperatures will arrive Wednesday, July 26 and stay through next weekend, with typical July temperatures, in the low 100s by Wednesday down to the low- to mid-90s by the weekend.
Contact Cynthia Davis at cdavis@record-bee.com.
