California: Drought, record heat, fires and now maybe floods
The record-breaking heat that has pushed California's electrical grid to the breaking point for more than a week is almost over but it's a sign of things to come
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Californians tried to weather the extremes of a changing climate Friday, as a punishing heat wave that has helped fuel deadly wildfires had the state teetering on the edge of blackouts for a 10th consecutive day while a tropical storm barreled ashore with the promise of cooler temperatures but also possible flooding.
The abrupt swing in conditions even whipsawed weather junkies.
“This is perhaps the singularly most unusual and extreme weather week in quite some time in California — and that is saying something. Whew,” Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, wrote on his western weather blog.
While the rains may be welcome in the drought-plagued state and will bring relief with more normal temperatures, deluges and more brutal heat waves are forecast to become regular fixtures as climate change warms the planet and weather-related disasters become more extreme.
