Record heat in California

California baked under a record heat wave this week, as temperatures soared to 116 degrees in Sacramento on Tuesday.

The state's electrical utilities requested customers conserve energy during peak points, and the voluntary cutbacks reduced demand enough that the use of rolling blackouts was avoided. Tuesday’s 52,000 megawatts of electrical demand set a record for the state.

Gov. Gavin Newsom, (D) California: "27 million of those text messages went out. And within 45 minutes, we saw roughly 2600 megawatt reduction and uses had that not happened, we would have had some episodic load reduction. The state ISO, which is the Independent System Operator did not direct any load reductions, period, full stop. So there were localized decisions as a relates to issues related to extreme heat and extreme utilization of resources, which are not a typical. "

The hot and dry weather drove animals at the Orange County Zoo into the pool to find relief from the heat. Workers on outdoor projects were taking more breaks to avoid heat related illnesses. 

The record temps aggravated the effects of the multi-decadal drought in the region which helped spread wildfires throughout the state. A fire in the mountains of Riverside County killed two people (day) and has burned over 20,000 acres. The fire was only X percent contained on Friday.

Hurricane Kay is complicating the weather in the Southwest. The closest hurricane to near California in 25 years could bring flash flooding to portions of California and Arizona and moderate rain to a large portion of the region. 

On a global scale, the  World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the U.N. weather agency, is warning that there may be a third La Nina in a row. La Nina events often lead to more Atlantic hurricanes, less rain and more wildfires in the Western U.S., and agricultural losses in the central U.S. 

Wilfran Moufouma Okia, World Meteorological Organization: “For instance, when you have La Nina, West Africa -- an area going from Senegal to Sudan -- normally is struck by floods; East Africa by drought; Australia, Indonesia with floods, and so forth. So knowing the evolution of La Nina helps us anticipate."

The recent floods in Pakistan are believed to have been worsened by the current La Nina event. 

For Market to Market, I’m Peter Tubbs