A historically severe September heat wave is baking the West, breaking hundreds of records, posing a danger to public health and pushing California’s power grid to the limit. Some records have been shattered by wide margins as the scorching air mass exacerbates the fire danger in the drought-stricken region. 

As San Jose and Sacramento soared to all-time records of 109 and 114 degrees Tuesday afternoon, California’s Independent System Operator (ISO) said the state’s electric grid is under heavy strain and warned consumers “to be prepared for possible outages” Tuesday evening. 

“As the state faces the hottest day in this prolonged, record-breaking heat wave, grid conditions are expected to worsen,” the grid operator wrote in a news release. “If needed, ISO could order utilities to begin rotating power outages to maintain stability of the electric grid.”

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