Another heat wave descending on Southern California was expected to push temperatures into the triple digits, and potentially to record-breaking highs in the region’s high desert and interior valleys.
The National Weather Service issued an excessive heat warning for much of the state that began Friday at noon and will extend into Monday night.
Forecasters are predicting dangerous triple-digit highs and warm overnight lows for much of the state’s inland regions.
Extreme heat puts a strain on the California power grid, and the agency that manages most of the state’s electric grid has requested consumers to conserve energy during a Flex Alert on Friday and Saturday from 4 to 9 p.m.
Flex Alerts are a call to consumers to voluntarily conserve energy when demand for power could outstrip supply, which generally occurs during heat waves when electrical demand is high.
If demand still outstrips supply after the Flex Alert is in effect, the ISO can order state utilities to reduce demand by implementing rotating power outages of relatively short duration to extend the available electricity as much as possible, according to the California Independent System Operator.
Extreme heat conditions have continued since last month, which the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration deemed to be the hottest June on record for not only California but also for the rest of the United States.
According to the June 29 U.S. Drought Monitor report, a little more than 47% of the contiguous U.S. was experiencing drought — up from nearly 44% at the beginning of June.
NOAA estimates that the drought and heat wave battering the American West conditions have created losses exceeding $1 billion.