Not so long ago, the chief annual dread for many people was the prospect of making it through a long, hard winter.
Now, it would appear, it’s making it through a long hard summer.
The western United States is being hit with an enormous heat wave that is extending throughout nearly the entire region.
Outside the deserts, the worst of it has been hitting the nation’s fruit and vegetable basket in California’s Central Valley.
I was once in Fresno, CA, during the summer. I got out of my air-conditioned car, and it hit me. “My God!” I thought. “This is like stepping into a clothes dryer.”
The temperature was around 105.
I can’t imagine, then, what it would be like to face temperatures of 115, which was expected to hit Sacramento on Tuesday. Still less the 124 degrees recorded in Death Valley three times during recent days.
The heat wave is expected to continue into this week, with relief coming around Thursday or Friday.
The Salinas Valley, closer to the coast, is usually cooler, and many of its major crops, notably leafy greens, rely on that fact. Nevertheless, daytime highs are expected to reach into the 80s near the coast and 110 in the southern part of the valley.
Further to the south, Mexico too has been hit by high temperatures, hurting broccoli yields and quality.
Although the heat is expected to lead to wildfires, one fortunate fact about the current season is that a relatively few 200,000 acres of California have burned in wildfires so far this year, less than 10 percent of last year’s 2.2 million acres, and less than the 5-year average of 1.26 million acres.
Nevertheless, the worst part of the wildfire season remains ahead.
On August 31, California governor Gavin Newsom announced a state of emergency to temporarily increase energy production and reduce demand.
Further measures were announced on September 1.
The one that most directly affects the produce industry states: “Employers are required to prevent heat illness in their employees, by providing outdoor workers with fresh water, access to shade at 80 degrees and whenever requested by a worker, cool-down rest breaks in addition to regular breaks, and maintaining a written prevention plan.”
