Texas Power Grid Strains In Record Hot Weather, Just As It Did In Record Cold Weather

Texas residents are getting fed up with both the long lasting
heat wave they are experiencing and ERCOT, which
does a poor job managing the state's electrical grid.
ERCOT keeps telling residents to conserve electricity
due to inadequacies in the Texas grid.

 You want your electric power supply to be reliable. Especially when temperatures in the winter are below zero, so you don't freeze to death in your own home.  

You also want electric power to be reliable, when it's 110 degrees out and you don't want to die of heat stroke in your own home.

Texas can have both kinds of weather, and their power grid is not up to the challenge of either weather extremes. 

The hilariously and inaccurately named Electric Reliability Council of Texas or ERCOT begged customers to conserve power as much as possible on Monday after several days of intense heat. Intense even by Texas standards.  

For the state of Texas as a whole, Sunday was the second hottest day since at least 1950. Individual cities melted in the heat. Houston reached 105 degrees, tying the record for the hottest day in that giant city's history. That huge city also set a record for their hottest four-day stretch on record.

Somerville, Texas got up to 113 degrees Sunday. College Station was close behind at 111 degrees, its second hottest temperature on record. Austin reached 110 degrees over the weekend, tying the record for the hottest on record for the entire month of July.

The heat is expected to go on for quite awhile yet, too. Each of the next seven days in Dallas are expected to reach at least 100 degrees, except possibly on Friday, when the forecast high is a comparatively frigid 99 degrees.

Anytime you get record, long lasting heat like Texas is experiencing, you're going to run into power supply shortages. If we manage to have a near record heat wave here in Vermont later this summer, I'm sure you'll hear pleas to reduce your electricity usage during the day. (Spoiler: No big heat waves are currently in the Vermont forecast).

So you'd expect ERROR, I mean ERCOT to ask for conservation. But Texas is a special case, and I do mean that in a derogatory way, at least in terms of its energy management.

They long ago decided to create their own independent power grid, with no real links to power supplies in other areas. Here in Vermont, we're more typical of other regions of the United States. We'll get feeds of electricity from other states and/or Quebec if demand begins to outstrip supply in the Green Mountain State. 

With no way to get help from surrounding regions, Texas can only do so much in these situations. 

Traditional electric generating plants, run by gas or coal or other fossil fuels are falling short. Some are in disrepair. There's eco-friendly power sources. Solar power is doing great with the wall to wall sunshine of the Texas heat wave, but supplies are limited. Wind power is big in Texas, but under this het wave, wind is practically non-existent, so the whirlygigs aren't helping all that much. 

ERCOT warned over the weekend that if energy conservation was insufficient Monday, there would be rolling blackouts. As of late Monday afternoon, it appeared as if enough people were turning up the temperature on their air conditioning settings to barely avoid these blackouts.  Plus, a few well timed and well placed thunderstorms developed Monday afternoon over some populated areas, cooling things down a bit and reducing demand. 

Temperatures cooled ever so slightly in Texas on Wednesday, so the electricity is still flowing. They're not out of the woods yet, of course.  Through the end of the month, long range forecasts focus on Texas as being the most likely area of the United States to experience much hotter than normal temperatures. 

Even if nobody in Texas ends up with a blackout because of the heat, they're going to pay for this heat wave.  In May, before the heat really hit in earnest, average power bills in Texas had already increased by 30 percent or so in a few previous weeks. 

While virtually all the continental U.S. is expected to be
hotter than  normal through the end of the month, Texas
is the most likely place to experience much hotter
than normal conditions. 

If the current story of a weather related Texas energy emergency rings a bell, it's because you're thinking of February, 2021. It's believed 246 Texans died, and billions of dollars in damage hit Texas when the state's power grid collapsed in a record cold wave. Most of those who died succumbed to the cold or carbon monoxide poisoning from using alternative and unsafe ways to stay warm.

As always, this has gotten political. Democrat Beto O'Rourke is running against incumbent Republican Gregg Abbott. O'Rourke made sure to tweet the following:

"We can't rely on the grid when it's hot. We can't rely on the grid when it's cold. We can't rely on Greg Abbott. It's time to vote him out and fix the grid."

By the way, I wouldn't get too smug about your friendly local power grid being better than the one in Texas. Yours probably is better than that of the Lone Star State, but not immune from increasingly weird weather brought on by climate change.

Other than storms, heat waves are probably the biggest culprit than get cut your power. Cold waves can of course do it to you, too. But weather extremes are getting more, well extreme under the pressures of climate change. Just another thing we'll need to be prepared for.

It is expected to get hot up here in Vermont next week. It likely won't be record heat, and the power grid should hold up just fine. That's not to say things will work out with our power supply if the heat were more intense and long lasting. 

Even in a place with better energy management like Vermont, electricity will be one of the many important things affected by climate change. 

 

Why The Nation's Winter Weather Went Off Rails And Texas Sank Under It

Interstate 35 in Austin, Texas took on a frozen post-
apocalyptic look this week. Photo by Miguel
Gutierrez Jr/Texas Tribune 

The United States certainly went through one hell of a week in the weather department, with extreme, deadly weather that will be remembered for generations to come. 

This incredible weather will wane and things are slowly starting to go back to something resembling normal, but the damage is done. 

The death toll is rising, and there will probably be billions of dollars in damage from coast to coast. 

As of Wednesday, the nationwide death toll from the Arctic weather had risen to at least 30, and that will surely go up, possibly a lot, as people are found in frozen homes and apartments. By some estimates, this will be the most expensive weather disaster in Texas history, costing even more than the $20 billion in inflation-adjusted damage from Hurricane Harvey in 2017. 

Now that the weather is finally getting ready to slowly improve, here's how this all happened in the first place:    

THE METEOROLOGY

This episode of awful weather had it seeds in what I described in this blog thingy a month ago. A sudden stratospheric warming.

Way back on January 9, I described how this sudden stratospheric warming would blow the polar vortex apart. The vortex is a huge upper level pool of frigid, stormy air that usually hangs out somewhere in the Arctic. It does tend to move around somewhat. 

Or, as noted get blown apart occasionally.

We're reaping that harvest, as it were, of that event now. 

This disrupted polar vortex led to something called high latitude blocking, which is basically high pressure areas setting up around the Arctic. Pieces of the polar vortex, which is low pressure, were displaced further south 

As the Washington Post Capital Weather Gang explains it, this high pressure in the high Arctic helped displace the polar vortex into the North Atlantic. The low pressure in the North Atlantic and high pressure near Alaska channeled incredibly bitter air from Siberia, across the North Pole and straight down into Canada and the United States.

The jet stream also became weaker than it normally is this time of year. A strong jet stream tends to keep most of the cold air bottled up in Canada.

A weaker jet stream has much more pronounced curves, dips and bumps.   A big dip in this weak jet stream developed over the central United States, and that directed that awful Siberian air right down to Texas. 

Outbreaks of Arctic air usually get shunted east, at least to an extent, so that the Great Lakes and Northeast shiver in temperatures way below zero.  That's sort of OK, we're used to it. 

This time, with that big dip in the jet stream, the frigid air shot straight to Oklahoma and Texas, with little chance to modify on the way down. 

CLIMATE CHANGE?

I've seen a few wags online saying a record, intense cold wave like his is "proof" climate change does not exist. 

As I always state, a single weather event does nothing to prove or disprove climate change. 

The weather always has extremes, one way or the other.  Climate change has loaded the dice, so it's now likely there will be hot spells than cold spells.  But there will still be cold spells. 

Actually, the air temperature at its source in Siberia and the Arctic wasn't unusual. What was strange is that it made its way all the way down to the Mexican border, resulting in the extreme cold for the South. 

I've mentioned this before, but some scientists suspect that climate change can actually make these kinds of episodes more likely. 

The Arctic is warming faster than points south, so that reduces the temperature contrast between the tropics and the poles.  A subdued temperature contrast might make a weaker jet stream.  Remember what I said above: A weaker jet stream can be more prone to bigger dips and ridges. That in turn, can pull cold air south where it doesn't belong and hot air north, where it also doesn't belong. 

In fact, this is the second time in four months this has happened in the southern Plains. An out of season ice storm caused a lot of problems in Oklahoma back in October. 

But as Nature reported last November, the science around climate change and weaker jet streams and weird spells of weather is still very iffy. 

Scientists have a lot more work to do to establish whether these mega cold snaps amid an otherwise warming climate is a real thing or not.   

THE ICE

While that polar vortex in the North Atlantic was helping direct frigid air into the United States, a stronger than average ridge of swarm, tropical high pressure in the upper atmosphere established itself off the Southeast United States coast, and north of the Caribbean.

This directed -  or tried to direct  - warm, humid air toward the southeastern United States. Note that while most of the nation was freezing, Florida was enduring near record winter time heat and humidity. 

Warm air is lighter than cold air. When this toasty, humid air encountered the frigid air over much of the United States, it would ride up and over the cold air.  And there were plenty of episodes in the past week where this happened, and is still happening. 

Raindrops falling from the warm air encounter the cold air near the surface. They either freeze on the way down, creating sleet, or freeze on contact with the ground, causing the dangerous and damaging icing we've seen so much of. 

TEXAS POWER OUTAGES 

Politics over the widespread and dangerous Texas power outages as exploded. 

The outages, which affected more than 4 million Texans, is the most serious and probably most deadly outcome of this cold snap.  

Electrical grids froze up all over Texas, leading 
to massive days-long blackouts 

Texas is used to  heat waves, but cold waves of this intensity and length are super rare.  The whole state was affected, not just part of it as is typical in most winter cold snaps. 

This has probably happened maybe four or five times in the past 200 years or so. 

Demand for power spiked as people struggle to heat their homes. 

If you figure a comfortable temperature for a house is 70 degrees, you only have to cool the rooms by 30 degrees if its hot outside in the summer 

In this cold wave you have to heat the rooms by 70 degrees if it's zero outside so that takes a lot of energy. Plus, the millions of homes and businesses in Texas are designed to be insulated from New England-style winter conditions. 

The gas and coal plants weren't up to the task. Plus, these plants were not built to withstand such bitter temperatures. Gas lines froze, as did equipment in power plants. 

Most of the nation's power is controlled by two massive grids, one in the eastern half of the nation, one in the west. 

Since each power grid encompasses several states, they are subject to federal regulations that, among other things, demand that the plants are weatherized. Also, since the east and west grids are so big, they can be some electricity trading with other states if one area is affected by bad weather and another is not. 

Texas, however, controls its own power grid, controlled by the now-unfortunately named Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT.  

The Texas power grid is not part of the eastern and western regions. They've done this in part to avoid dealing with cumbersome federal regulations. The state didn't winterize their power plants, because cold waves like this are so rare. 

When the weather hit, the plants wilted in the Arctic chill. Compounding the problem, some electricity generating plants shut down in Texas during the winter for maintenance. That's because electricity demand in the Lone Star State is usually highest in the summer. 

I've seen some blame go to wind and solar power that froze up in the cold. But these renewables only contribute 21 percent of Texas electricity generation.  

Some wind turbines did freeze up, but most of them kept working. Though power from windmills did decrease during the winter storm, that decrease from renewables was actually a little less than forecast.  Most of the problem was from gas and coal electric generating plants. 

By the weekend, temperatures in Texas will rise to levels near or even a little above average for the season - well above freezing. The power will come back on for everybody.  All those frozen pipes will thaw, causing countless new building floods, drinking water shortages and danger. 

It will take many areas of the nation awhile to recover from this disaster. That's especially true in Texas. 

Wild Winter Storm Continues; Vermont Impacts Pretty Substantial

A major highway interchange early this morning a little
north of Houston, Texas. Roads are basically impassable
due to snow and ice. Traffic signals are out due to
rolling blackouts brought on by the cold.

 The spectacle of a historic national winter storm and cold wave continues in the nation this morning, with record cold, dangerous conditions, rolling power blackouts and life-threatening wind chills, especially across parts of the South.  

I'll get into Vermont specifics in a bit, but I do have to marvel at how serious and widespread this whole thing is. 

Some of the reports are pretty incredible. The sandy beaches of normally tropical Galveston, Texas were snow covered as lightning crackled overhead. At the very southern tip of Texas, at Brownsville, snow dusted the palm trees and it was already down to 29 degrees before dawn. 

Slightly further north, the reports are ridiculous. At 6 a.m. local time, Oklahoma City reported blowing snow, a temperature of minus 5 and a wind chill of 28 below. That's really nasty by Vermont standards, never mind warmer Oklahoma. 

Further south in Dallas, Texas, it was 8 degrees at 6 a.m. It won't get past the mid-teens this afternoon, and will flirt with zero tonight. The normal high and low this time of year in Dallas is 60/40.

Amid all the ice in the southern, central and eastern parts of the nation, reports of car crashes and multi-vehicle wrecks piled up almost as fast as the snow. 

CNN reports at least 11 deaths so far from the storm, a toll that is sure to rise. Most of the deaths so far have been via vehicle crashes on those icy roads. At last check, 1.5 million homes and businesses were without power, many of those in areas facing record cold.  

The situation in Texas is especially dire.  The power grid there cannot keep up with electricity demands from people trying to heat their homes. There hasn't been a statewide, sustained cold wave like this since at least 1989, probably earlier, so the power grid is not designed for this weather. 

The result is rolling blackouts that started overnight across Texas.  These will probably continue until the cold wave ends toward the end of the week. Outages are worse, more widespread and longer lasting than anticipated.  

People across much of Texas are suffering through cold houses as power remains out for hours. Pipes will surely freeze and there will be lots of damage from this. Worse, many people, especially the elderly, are at really high risk from the cold an power failures.

This is developing into a major story on its own. Social media early this morning is raging with people complaining about the blackouts, and either real or perceived unfairness over who gets blacked out and for how long. 

The storm that's approaching us here in Vermont is or will disrupt life from Texas to Maine. 

The character of this winter siege has been ice storms. That is continuing with ice storm warnings popping up in a line from Alabama to southern New York. 

A second major storm - one that will affect us in Vermont around Friday - will cause more havoc from the Gulf Coast to New England as the week goes on.  

With that overview, let's get into what's going to happen here in Vermont. 

VERMONT IMPACTS

We see a few more adjustments in the forecast this morning as the storm approaches.  The trend is for more snow across the north and more mixed precipitation across southern Vermont with this system. 

By the way, the second storm late in the week is trending just a bit colder, too. More on that in a minute. 

Latest storm forecast from the National Weather Service,
South Burlington, Vermont. Widespread 10 inches of snow
expected northern parts of state. Much less accumulation,
but very dense 2-6 inches due to expected sleet. 

This is all an illustration of how forecasts change as better information becomes available closer to the storm.  On Friday and Saturday, it appeared that the least accumulation from Tuesday's storm would be over northwestern Vermont and the most toward the southern part of the state.

Now the opposite is true.

Details, Storm #1

This storm is putting down a layer of snow from Texas to Maine. The deepest snow accumulations from this storm actually look like they will be over northern New York an northwestern Vermont. 

Clouds have already covered the sky over Vermont and patchy light snow will break out this afternoon.  This is just moisture running out ahead of the storm. It'll be good for a dusting to two inches of snow by evening, and some of the roads will be slick by the afternoon and evening commute.

The main show begins overnight. The heaviest stuff will come through between midnight tonight and noon Tuesday. 

In the hours either side of dawn tomorrow, snow will be coming down at a rate of an inch or two per hour in the northern half of Vermont.  Snow plows really can't do a great job of keeping up with snow falling at that rate.

A lot of us are working remotely from home anyway, and tomorrow morning will be just another excuse to do that. Don't travel Tuesday morning if you don't have to. It's going to be a mess.

That mess will be statewide but it will be a different sort of mess in southern Vermont. There is a better chance of sleet and freezing rain that earlier forecast. In fact, sleet could briefly make it as far north as Montpelier tomorrow morning before switching back to snow. 

The southern half of Vermont will get an initial thump of snow, followed by sleet and some freezing rain. The further south you go, the more mixed precipitation you'll get. Luckily, since it will be more sleet than freezing rain, there won't be too much ice on the trees in southern Vermont.

But a little ice is a danger, because the next storm late in the week could bring more freezing rain further weighing down the trees. 

This big pile of snow currently greets me as I leave my
front door in St. Albans, Vermont. If we get two
snowstorms this week, I'm not sure how I will
deal with that mountain of snow. 

In the north, the snow will become light and more scattered as we go through Tuesday afternoon and night. In the south, mixed schmutz will go back over to snow and end. 

North of Route 2, total accumulations are expected to be in the eight to 12 inch range. Forecasters think amounts will taper off to around six inches near Rutland and White River Junction and two to five inches in far southern Vermont. 

Remember, though, that sleet and ice are much more dense than snow. The cleanup after the storm might actually be more back-breaking in southern Vermont than in the north, where you'll have to shovel snow, not dense sleet. 

Details, Storm #2

The second storm, for Thursday and Friday, is still far enough away so that nobody is really sure what's going to happen. 

The storm, with tons of moisture with it is going to run northward out of the Gulf of Mexico and head toward western New York.  A secondary storm will then form along the New York and New England coast.

The question that continues to bedevil forecasters is which of the two storms will dominate as they come closest to us?

If the one going by just to our west dominates we get a lot of mixed precipitation after a thump of snow. If the coastal storm turns out to be the dominate one, we still get mixed precipitation, but more in the way of snow, especially in northwestern areas.

The trend in this morning's forecast has been toward the colder, coastal storm scenario.  If that happens northwestern Vermont could get quite a bit of snow out of the second one.  If that happens, I envision some giant snow banks up my way by the end of the week. 

I don't know if this colder trend in the forecasts will hold, or will forecasts flip back to the warmer, schmutz, ice and rain scenario. 

Like the current storm, we probably won't have a really great handle on it until the day before this thing actually hits.  We know the end of the week will bring us a messy storm. We just don't know yet what kind of mess it will be.