Never mind it is Spare the Air Day, fires are raging and the Pandemic shows no sign of abating. It’s easy to forget that America leads the planet in Covid-19 fatalities.
Soon we will reach the 200,000 death mark. So, what. It’s time to head for the seashore as the packed San Francisco Ocean Beach photo above illustrates.
For Americans it’s only “What about me?” It’s a holiday weekend. So hop in your car. Drive the fossil fuel burning vehicles, totally blow off social distancing and party like there’s no ramifications for this absurd behavior.
No wonder a buffoon like Trump is President of the United States. People get what they deserve.
San Francisco Chronicle 9.6.2020
Even as much of the state sizzled in triple-digit temperatures Sunday and air conditioners strained the power grid to the max, fears of rolling blackouts again did not come to pass as people saved energy.
With Ocean Beach closed off, motorists attempted to flee the acrid smoke by heading to Marin beaches. But northbound lanes of the Golden Gate Bridge were stopped dead, and the route to the Marin Headlands was backed up to the toll plaza. In Corte Madera, a sign on Highway 101 warned motorists that access routes to Stinson Beach were closed.
Napa and Sonoma counties also face the prospect of a different type of weather-related outage: fire-prevention shut-offs starting late Monday evening and lasting well into Wednesday. A red flag warning will be in effect during that time period, and Pacific Gas and Electric Co. wants to prevent wind-related damage to its equipment from starting another wildfire.
Those outages may affect about 17,000 people in Napa County — in Calistoga, St. Helena and unincorporated areas — and 600 people in Sonoma County —in Cloverdale, Rohnert Park and unincorporated areas.
On Sunday, heat records for Sept. 6 had fallen throughout the Bay Area, including marks of 100 in downtown San Francisco, well past the previous record of 92 degrees, established on Sept. 6, 1904, 102 in downtown Oakland and 110 in Napa. Also showing record heat were Livermore, Richmond, Kentfield, Redwood City, Half Moon Bay, San Jose and Gilroy.
Monday could see Livermore reach 110 degrees and Napa hit 103 degrees.
But late in the day, the heat will start to break as strong offshore winds sweep through. The National Weather Service has issued a red flag warning starting at 10 p.m. Monday for the North Bay mountains, East Bay hills and Santa Cruz Mountains.
The Creek Fire burns near Huntington Lake on Saturday. The blaze has contributed to concerns over the state’s power grid by shutting down a Madera County power station.
“In the next few days we will deal with stronger winds pushing through, as the high pressure starts pushing out and low pressure starts pushing in,” said weather service meteorologist Brayden Murdock. “That gradient between the high and the low could cause winds of up to 50 miles per hour in the highest elevations.”
Normally the breakdown of the high-pressure winds brings with it the cooling onshore flow, but the fog will not show itself until midweek at the earliest, Murdock said.
“Unfortunately there is not a lot of humidity recovery in it, so overnight temperatures will remain warm,” Murdock said. “We will be dealing with those dry conditions on top of the winds until Wednesday.”
San Francisco was not quite as hot as the Labor Day weekend blast furnace of 2017, but the air quality was far worse.
Sunday afternoon was so hazy that from Golden Gate Heights in the Outer Sunset, you could not see the coastline 30 blocks west. The normal refuge of Ocean Beach was complicated when Mayor London Breed ordered parking lots closed after a gathering of Burning Man devotees Saturday.
Lee's Perspective 