Published: August 04, 2008 11:29 pm      

Turning up the heat

GREENVILLE — The hottest summer in years continues in North Texas, as the local high temperature again climbed into the triple digits Monday.

Things were even hotter for area firefighters, who battled numerous blazes during the day as drought conditions worsened. Greenville residents spent most of their time indoors, firing up their air conditioners, as the local demand for electricity came close to setting a new record.

Another heat warning is on tap for today, although conditions may improve ever so slightly by the middle of the week.

The high temperature at Majors Field Municipal Airport in Greenville, the official monitoring site used by the National Weather Service, rose to 102 degrees Monday. It was the third straight day of triple-digit heat in Greenville and the fifth so far this summer.

The high today is expected to approach 100 degrees, with heat index values near 103 degrees, and the National Weather Service has issued another heat advisory for the region, urging anyone involved in outdoor activities to take extra precautions to avoid heat exhaustion and heat stroke.

Temperatures were forecast to moderate somewhat Wednesday and Thursday, hitting the high 90s each day, before an expected return to the triple digits by the end of the week.

Several grass and brush fires were reported Monday, including one which broke out shortly before 4 p.m. not far from a residential subdivision along Cedar Creek Lane in Greenville. Units from the Greenville Fire Department were assisted by personnel from the Texas Forest Service, which recently began boosting its presence in Greenville in anticipation of the increased danger of wildfire activity. No homes were threatened and no injuries were reported. At the same time, Caddo Mills and Cash firefighters battled a fire that had gotten into the tree line at the intersection of FM 36 and FM 1564.

Most of Hunt County was experiencing significant drought conditions Monday according to the Keetch-Byram Drought Index issued by the Texas Forest Service, with some portions of the county already in the severe range.

A reading of 800 is the highest on the scale, meaning that it would take eight or more inches of rainfall to bring the county’s soil to saturation. Soil moisture in Hunt County ranged from a reading of 518 to 707 Monday, with an average of 658.

There was little hope in Monday evening’s forecast that Tropical Storm Edouard, which is expected to make landfall near Galveston today, would bring any significant moisture to the parched regions of North Texas.

GEUS, the local electric utility system, reported a peak demand for electricity in Greenville Monday of 112 megawatts, just shy of the utility’s all-time record of 113 megawatts set in August 2006.

GEUS has the capacity to generate 133 megawatts of power from the Texas Municipal Power Agency’s (TMPA) coal-fired generation plant and the natural gas-fired plant located in north Greenville. The north Greenville plant is a peaking plant which is brought on line when Greenville’s needs become greater than TMPA’s coal-fired plant can provide or when other systems in Texas need power.

The demand for electricity is up across the State of Texas, with energy producers asking people to cut back during the afternoons.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), grid operator for most of the state, and the Public Utility Commission, were encouraging consumers and businesses to reduce their electricity use during the peak electricity hours from 3 to 7 p.m. Monday due to expected high electricity usage.