Energy flashes as a Texas meteorologist says a heat wave could cause outages

Suspension

During his 3 p.m. weather report on Wednesday, Travis Herzog, a meteorologist for KTRK in Houston, stood in front of a screen showing the astronomically high temperatures blazing in Texas — up to 105 degrees in College Station.

And when you “have this kind of heat over a large population, you get a huge draw from that electricity demand,” Herzog explained.

But before Herzog uttered the word “electrician,” Lights outConverting Herzog to a silhouette in front of a weather map.

“It looks like we’ve just switched to generator power,” Herzog said before continuing to talk about “excessive heat” in some Texas town, our lights just went out. Seconds later, the lights came on again.

But two hours later, it happened again. Herzog also warned of triple-digit temperatures in some areas of Texas on a 5 p.m. broadcast, the lights were off.

“Maybe it’s just my sexy character, maybe not,” Herzog tweet afterwards. “But this time I was totally expecting Ashton Kutcher to come around the corner and say, ‘You’ve been damaged!’ “

But hey, the show has to go on!

And just to be clear, we’re not sure what caused the temporary power outage in our building.

What I can say is that the network conditions have become very tight. Hopefully we can get past that by using the lights and turning on the AC!

– Travis Herzog (@TravisABC13) July 13, 2022

The strange moments came as Texas experienced a record heat wave Pushing the state’s electricity grid to its limits. Last week, Texas experienced triple-digit temperatures in many cities, prompting state energy officials to ask residents to conserve energy and raise their thermostats.

Severe heat rises to more than 110 in Texas as power grid nears brink

Fears of power outages during severe weather leave residents on edge, Texas Tribune mentioned. In February 2021, 3.5 million Texans lost power amid a record cold snap, with temperatures in some areas dropping to freezing. more than 200 people died.

This month, the heat has become dangerous. In Houston, where Herzog works, temperatures reached 105 degrees on Sunday, making it The hottest July day in the city’s history. On that day College Station north of Houston reached 111 degrees, His second hottest day ever. San Antonio hit at least 100 degrees on a record 35 days this year.

Neighboring countries are also expected to experience dangerously high temperatures. Nationally, summers are getting hotter and longer thanks to climate change, which has led to wildfires, droughts, and floods, depending on the region. mentioned.

Summer in America is getting hotter, longer and more dangerous

Herzog tweeted Wednesday that he doesn’t know exactly why the lights went out twice during the broadcast. He explained that the screen behind him and other production devices were connected to a backup power source, which is why it didn’t blow out of the air.

“What I can say is that the network conditions have become very tight,” Herzog wrote. “I hope we can get past this by using the lights and turning on the AC!”