*States everything except the obvious: climate crisis.
*I'm here in Austin, and you can see the Greenhouse just by walking around. That's assuming you dare to walk around under cloudless skies and merciless glare.
http://www.statesman.com/news/local/austin-about-to-set-record-for-100-degree-1781012.html
By Farzad Mashhood
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Updated: 6:57 a.m. Wednesday, Aug. 24, 2011
Published: 10:10 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 23, 2011
We knew in June it was hot. Then came July hotter. Now it's August, and we're quickly running out of superlatives. (((What are you gonna say in ten years, then?)))
The high recorded at Camp Mabry on Tuesday was 104. It was the 69th day of 100-degree or hotter weather this year, tying a record set in 1925.
Austin averages a dozen 100-degree days a year.
And it seems this year isn't just going to tie the record, but hop, step and jump ahead of it. The high today is expected to top 100, and triple digits aren't expected to end until early September, said Bob Rose, the Lower Colorado River Authority's chief meteorologist.
Like an unwelcome houseguest who refuses to leave, a dome of high pressure has been torturing Texas since May. With La Niña-induced drought parching Texas soil since fall, the high-pressure system that typically sits over Texas in spring and summer has been unusually strong this year , Rose said.
Add to that a low-pressure trough over the West Coast that has only strengthened the high-pressure ridge over Texas, and weak storm systems from the north and the Gulf of Mexico haven't had a chance to offer relief.
"It takes a bully to get (the high-pressure ridge) out," said National Weather Service meteorologist Joe Baskin. "And that's not likely to happen in the near future."
Tuesday afternoon, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas reported a stage-one energy emergency because of high peak-time usage. The council could issue more emergency alerts this week if usage stays high, said Kent Saathoff , ERCOT's vice president of system planning and operations.
ERCOT warned consumers that blackouts are possible if they don't lessen their electricity use. Texas narrowly avoided rotating power outages earlier this month as state officials ordered several large industrial customers, mostly on the Gulf Coast, to shut down after electricity reserves dropped dangerously low.
Demand for electricity set all-time records on multiple occasions this summer as most of the state suffered record heat.
So, should we expect more 100-degree days every year from now on?
Rose says the hot summers won't be the new normal, but the string of La Niñas — a weather pattern in the Pacific Ocean that induces drought conditions in Texas — will be more common for a while.... (((It's not about "hot summers" – it's about HOTTER summers. Unprecedentedly hotter summers. Listening to this is exactly like people talking about the economic crisis before 2008. There's this assumption that things will restabilize, somebody somewhere is gonna look after things, this is "unusual," "freakish" – no. No, that's not what is happening. What is really happening is delusion, fecklessness, organized denial and a rising tide of mass anxiety. And not just in Texas: most everywhere.)))
