Eastern Australia Breaks Electricity Demand Records Due To Polar Blast; Summer 'Snow' Record At Philadelphia; New Study: Temperature Drives CO2; + Climate Charting Obfuscations
The discrepancies are "deeply concerning".
Eastern Australia Breaks Electricity Demand Records Due To Polar Blast
The wintry blast sweeping eastern Australia is setting records for cold and electricity demand alike, affecting multiple states and prompting energy authorities to prepare for outages.
On Monday, Victoria broke a 17-year record for maximum winter electricity demand, reaching 8,612 MW at 6PM, surpassing the previous record set in July 2007 by more than 250 MW.
This demand spike is expected to be challenged again, as temperatures across much of the state remain well-below average with further snows expect from Tasmania through Victoria and New South Wales.
Headed north, Queensland has also set a new record for maximum winter electricity demand, reaching 8,728 MW, up 12 MW from the previous record set on July 4, 2022. At the time of the peak demand, Queensland's generation mix consisted of 65.1% black coal, 25.9% gas, 4.2% hydro, 2.5% wind, 0.7% batteries, and 1.6% imported.
With winter only halfway over and lengthy periods of anomalous cold forecast to continue buffeting Australia, AEMO has warned that "deliverability risks" could persist until the end of August. Energy authorities say they are working to ensure that households can maintain heating while managing industrial gas supplies.
The cold has persisted this week, intensified even.
Most-recently, Queensland has broken a slew of cold weather records, so reports cairnspost.com.au, in what they have called a "brutal" polar blast. On Thursday, Far North Queensland notched its lowest temperatures in 116 years, with Cape York taking the biscuit. The state has even seen rare snow, which is reported to have fallen at three separate regions in Southern Queensland.
The story of the past few weeks has been anomalous cold, at least in the east.
And looking ahead, latest GFS runs foresee more of the same, with the majority of the Aussie continent set to be engulfed by 'blue' by the end of the month, piling extra strain on the grid.
Summer "Snow" Record At Philadelphia
On Sunday afternoon, small hail fell during a thunderstorm at Philadelphia International Airport. The local NWS in Mount Holly, New Jersey logged it as snow due to official guidelines that categorize hail, along with sleet and graupel, as snowfall.
This might have gone unnoticed but for it triggering a record event report:
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