Facts Of The Day 8/18

Extreme Heat

• California’s utility provider PG&E began power shut-offs to 51,000 customers in Northern California on Tuesday night to decrease fire danger from power lines.

• Oregon and Washington hospitals saw 1,038 emergency room visits on June 28th alone during the heatwave.

• Outdoor workers including farmworkers, construction workers, and firefighters are dying in extreme heat due to climate change and currently have no federal heat standard to protect them.

• Colorado Governor Jared Polis has signed a letter to President Joe Biden to urge the president to declare a Federal Emergency Management Agency for states experiencing drought.

• One Colorado farmer has not raised one bale of hay for the past 3 of 4 years and has gone from having 800 breeding cows in 2018 to 350 cows in 2021.

• Cutbacks to Arizona’s Colorado River supply will require the state’s dairy farms to search further afield for supplies, which will be a blow to the local economy.

• The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California has issued a Water Supply Alert and urged residents to conserve water due to the drought.

• The city of Sartell, Minnesota, has banned non-essential outdoor water use effective immediately as of Tuesday as the area is in extreme drought.

• More than 900 manatees have died through the end of this year in Florida and is expected to reach as high as 1,200 by the end of the year with the red tide as a contributing factor.

• Wildfires, droughts, and warming temperatures mean animals such as bears are increasingly seen in urban areas to forage for food.

• The Bureau of Land Management plans to remove around 6,000 wild horses by October, an increase of 50% from last year, to preserve both the ecosystem and the horses.

• Reno, Nevada has set a record for having 21 days of the year reach 100 degrees or above as a temperature of 102 was recorded at Reno-Tahoe International Airport on Monday.

Wildfires

• There are currently 104 large wildfires that have burned 2,428,387 acres across CA, CO, ID, MN, MT, NM, NV, UT, WA, and WY.

• 9 new large fires were reported in California, Idaho, Montana, and Washington and 2 large fires were reported contained on Monday.

• 3,500 firefighters with the Department of Interior’s agencies and more than 11,300 firefighters at the US Forest Service will receive wage hikes to ensure federal firefighters are paid $15 an hour.

• Researchers are using drones to understand wildfire behavior by monitoring carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, particulates, and other volatile organic compounds emissions.

• Two new fires sparked on Tuesday – the Toetly 3 Fire burned 700 acres and was 0% contained and the Williams Fire burned 381 acres and was 50% contained.

• One new fire sparked in Oregon on Tuesday – the Twin Peaks Fire burned 450 acres and was 0% contained.

Hurricanes

• Tropical Storm Fred moved further north into the Florida Panhandle with 65 MPH winds on Tuesday.

• Fred dumped 10 to 12 inches of rain over Pisgah National Forest and caused flooding in Balsam Grove, North Carolina on Tuesday afternoon.

• Cruso, North Carolina, saw 9.1 inches of rain over a 24 hour period and Asheville, North Carolina saw almost 3 inches over 24 hours.

• A landslide blocked highway 23 US-19 in Canton, North Carolina in both directions.

• Almost 50,000 customers in North Carolina were left without power as of 9 PM Tuesday.

• There were about 20 tornado reports with damage reported to homes in Homer, Greshamville, Pinefield Crossroads, District Path, and Americus, Georgia, as well as Stony Point, North Carolina.

• One tornado struck a warehouse in Jeffersonville, Georgia, which damaged the building and almost tipped over a nearby semi-truck trailer.

• One man in Panama City, Florida, suffered a broken neck that may require surgery after Fred helped damage a tree to bring down power lines that struck his car.

• Hurricane Grace was expected to form on Wednesday and hit wind speeds of 85 MPH by the time it reaches the Mexican coast.

• As of Wednesday morning, Grace was located 20 miles from Grand Cayman and producing top winds of 65 MPH with tropical-storm-force winds extending up to 115 miles from its center.

• Grace could reach hurricane strength as soon as Wednesday morning as it hits the Camayan Islands and before making expected landfall on Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula on late Wednesday or early Thursday.

• Parts of Mexico, as well as Jamaica and the Cayman Islands, may see up to 4 to 8 inches of rain through Friday

• Grace is expected to lose power over the Yucatan, regain strength, and produce winds of 85 MPH before it hits Mexico a second time.

• Tropical Storm Henri was located 160 miles south-southwest of Bermuda with maximum sustained winds of 65 MPH and moving west-southwest at 8 MPH.

• Henri is expected to become a hurricane by this weekend with maximum winds of 80 MPH.

• Henri is forecast to turn clockwise and head northeast by Friday, which would avoid the southeastern region of the United States but could possibly affect the upper Northeast by next week.

• Hurricane Linda became a category 2 storm with maximum sustained winds at 105 MPH, moving at about 12 MPH located about 1,675 miles east of Hilo, Hawaii as of Tuesday night.

• Linda was expected to turn west-northwest later Tuesday night and continue on that path through the rest of the week.

• Linda was scheduled to begin weakening on Wednesday and cross into the Central Pacific in the next 48 hours.

• The storm will pass north of the Hawaiian Islands as a post-tropical gale late in the weekend and may bring heavy rain to the state next week.

Climate Studies

• An August 2021 report found that 2020 was one of the three warmest years on record for Mexico/Central America and the Caribbean.

• An August 2021 study found that carbon capture and storage technology was one technique to battle climate change.

• An August 2021 study found that climate change coverage in 5 major countries has a 90% accuracy rate over the last 15 years in reporting.