Thursday, 4:30 PM
First blast of heat highlights summer power surge
(Michele McDonald/Globe Staff)
At Dudley Square bus station in Boston, Kenny Moore, left, and his cousin, Babacar Dhiam, middle, tried to stay cool today in the shade. In the foreground, Leonard Jackson sipped a soda.
By Andrew Ryan, Globe Staff
The summer’s first mini-heat wave crested this afternoon at a stifling 96 degrees, tying a 66-year-old record with a dose of blinding sunshine and a blast of shirt-drenching humidity.
While the sticky air will remain oppressive this evening, the heat is expected to give way to rain, as much of New England is under a thunderstorm watch until 10 p.m. tonight.
Temperatures are only predicted to climb into the upper 80s Thursday, and violent thunderstorms in the afternoon are expected to mark the end of the sultry weather. On Friday and through the weekend, temperatures will stay in the 70s, offering a stark contrast to today's heat.
"We will definitely be in a different air mass, meteorologically speaking, which will be much cooler," said Bill Simpson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Taunton.
While this spell of warm weather won't quite qualify as 2007’s first heat wave (by definition, a heat wave is three consecutive days over 90 degrees), it was still a steamy reminder that summer is here.
On Tuesday evening, a jump in the demand for power caused scattered power outages that left more than 10,000 customers in Massachusetts in the dark in Salem, Lynn, and Marlborough, said Elise Delbarone, spokeswoman for National Grid.
NStar, which has 1.1 million electricity customers in Massachusetts, was pumping out nearly 4,500 megawatts of power at peak usage today as people tried to keep cool, according to spokesperson Caroline Allen. That megawattage is below the records set last summer, but it could be an indication of what is to come.
"With more and more people getting high definition televisions and buying other new gadgets year after year, people are using more and more power," Allen said.
High definition televisions suck four to six times as much energy as the boxy, old fashioned models. Other newfangled contraptions with remote controls or digital clocks -- DVD players, digital video recorders, microwaves -- continue to use power while sitting idle. While the demand may inch up gradually, the increase is most apparent during heat waves, when air conditioners are jockeying for energy.
Bill Stack, a manager for the energy efficiency program at NStar, said today that consumers can take a few simple steps to cut power usage during hot spells, such as putting air-conditioners in windows on the north side of their homes, out of the sun that bakes the south side of building. Other steps included turning out lights, installing programmable thermostats for central air conditioners, and cooking meals outside or in the microwave.
"It mostly the stuff that you always hear your parents saying in the back of your head," Stack said.
Other tips include:
-Using ceiling fans
-Getting an air conditioner that fits a room. (“Bigger isn’t necessarily better,” Stack said.)
-Pulling shades and curtains to prevent sunlight from heating rooms
-Unplugging appliances with digital clocks when not in use. The “phantom load” used by idle appliance and gadgets can account for 10 percent of an electricity bill, Stack said.
From more information, got to myenergystar.com
