jenn96 said:

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It went around our house on a C shape according to the accuweather radar. No rain just enough wind to make it hazy and make my eyes feel like they've been sandblasted by all the dust. We haven't had a drop of rain since June, everything is brown even with watering and the cinch bugs are forming panzer divisions in my lawn. To paraphrase Crash Davis, **** this ****ing summer.

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Ha, perfect description. We filled up the inflatable pool just in time for the clouds to come in and the temp to drop. Was like 100+ when I started running the water and by the time we hopped in around 6:45 it was chilly unless you were under water. I ran in for a quick shower and when I turned it off heard what I thought was a big truck revving it's engine outside, only to find it was actually the howl of the winds. As soon as I stepped outside my wife and daughter were scrambling to come in and my eyes were blasted with sand.

It's crazy how much dust and sand has accumulated without any rain to wash it away. The 290 HOV lane just has a thick hovering layer of sand and debris. One thing is for sure, the roads out here are also going to slick as hell when it finally does rain.

I think you underestimate how much our grid is growing. Our peak demand this summer was 5GW more than last summer and we are adding 10GW of wind and solar by EoY. 8 GW over 2-3 years is still not enough.

FHKChE07 said:

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I think you underestimate how much our grid is growing. Our peak demand this summer was 5GW more than last summer and we are adding 10GW of wind and solar by EoY. 8 GW over 2-3 years is still not enough.

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Wind and solar haven't been carrying much of the load.

Why can't Texas pass some energy reliability laws that require some % of our overall generation capacity be supplied by sources that have over 90% reliability. Wind and solar either need to invest in batteries or they need to be sidelined until more thermal generation is online.

The federal govt is propping up wind and solar so the state needs to knock them back down.

Ciboag96 said:

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FHKChE07 said:

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I think you underestimate how much our grid is growing. Our peak demand this summer was 5GW more than last summer and we are adding 10GW of wind and solar by EoY. 8 GW over 2-3 years is still not enough.

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10GW that gets paid a fix rate at the fence line no matter the spot price.

10GW that depends on wind blowing and clouds ****ing off

10GW that wouldn't be built if not for ****ed-up bull**** regulations.

10GW that is keeping reliable baseload capacity away

10GW that is making people buy their own whole home generators and large OGC companies build additional capacity behind their meters.

So ****ing absolutely dumb. Environmentalists sure know how to **** up the environment

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Two things would solve this:
1. A Capacity market which provides funding for reliable generation to be built or maintained as insurance
and
2. An interconnection process where transmission and network upgrades are allocated to generators rather than Transmission owners (and then passed onto consumers)

Other markets like MISO and PJM have this and that's why they aren't the wild west like ERCOT.

ChemAg15 said:

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Why can't Texas pass some energy reliability laws that require some % of our overall generation capacity be supplied by sources that have over 90% reliability. Wind and solar either need to invest in batteries or they need to be sidelined until more thermal generation is online.

The federal govt is propping up wind and solar so the state needs to knock them back down.

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Because the Fed hands out environmental air permits, and they are making sure TX doesn't get any.

Nuclear? It's taken something like 20 years to get the one in GA close to commissioning.

The TECQ? Only God knows what they'll approve.

Joe *******i twitter has Idalia storm going theough Florida then off the east coast and circulating back in the Atlantic South of Florida only to enter the Gulf again and directly hit Houston.

What the hell!

https://x.com/bigjoe*******i/status/1696512188070891704?s=46&t=kAmMJAJSjmz27MKHRZXb8Q

One potential track out of a thousand. That's not where Idalia is making landfall.

But isn't that model saying it makes landfall originally around AL/MS? It won't be close to that right as almost everything has it hundreds of miles further east?

That's not the past track of Idalia. The storm/low crossed from the eastern Pacific around Nicaragua.

The track *******i shows in that tweet was Ivan in 2004. He's just showing a track like that can be done.

spadilly said:

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The track *******i shows in that tweet was Ivan in 2004. He's just showing a track like that can be done.

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Ah that makes more sense, but still seems very unlikely

Yes, I do think Joe is showing it can be done.

Is he predicting that it will happen again?

I don't normally wish for a hurricane here, but damn, Texas needs rain.

CenterPoint is such a joke.

I'm out of town and the wife calls to tell me the powers out. Couple minutes latter I get an email that CenterPoint is doing "planned maintenance" and the power will be out until 1100 or so.

No notice or anything that this was coming.

Fortunately I was able to walk her through getting the generator up and running for the whole house, but this is crazy.

Stat Monitor Repairman said:

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Seems like an appropriate time to have a flashback to hurricane map Charpiegate.

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I don't recall the context of this pic. What's up with it?

Story time!!!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Dorian%E2%80%93Alabama_controversy

Hard to believe it has been 6 years since Harvey.

It's official: You've just lived through Houston's hottest month in recorded history. The average high of 102.7° beats the 102.0° in 2011. Congratulations?

To help ease the pain, there is a chance of rain over the holiday weekend: https://t.co/kYz1z4P7gd pic.twitter.com/u8yFp9CENG

— Travis Herzog ⚡️ (@TravisABC13) August 31, 2023

JSKolache said:

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BayAg_14 said:

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Hard to believe it has been 6 years since Harvey.

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Bought house 3 wks before it hit, and was legit worried we'd lose it all due to flood insurance waiting period. But here we are now with failing appliances and a struggling AC, just living the dream baby.

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Everyone technically should have a struggling A/C because we've had a month of weather that exceeds design temperature (95F). On Sunday, it was 13 degrees above design temperature. If your A/C hasn't been struggling to hit 74F during the afternoon this month, then it's probably oversized or a multi/variable stage system with excess capacity above Manual J.

The Drought Monitor was released yesterday (Extreme to Exceptional conditions), Outdoor Burn Bans remain in effect for all of SE TX and the U.S. Drought Monitor for September is available. #txwx #houwx #glswx #bcswx https://t.co/g4g1nIImYt pic.twitter.com/M65tvSPRFk

— NWS Houston (@NWSHouston) August 31, 2023