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New York Swelters With Heat Challenging 19th Century Records

New York Swelters With Heat Set to Challenge 19th-Century Highs

New York and the U.S. Northeast will get a string of hot days this week, with temperatures Monday that may topple daily records in Manhattan and Boston dating to the 19th century.

The high in New York’s Central Park was forecast to reach 97 degrees Fahrenheit (36 Celsius), one degree shy of the record for the date set in 1869, said Bob Oravec, a senior branch forecaster at the U.S. Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland. Boston is set to tie its high of 98 for July 27 set in 1872.

“The hottest days are going to be Monday and Tuesday,” Oravec said. “Monday has the potential for a lot of records in areas of the Northeast.” At 2 p.m., the temperature in New York had risen to 92 in Central Park.

New York Swelters With Heat Challenging 19th Century Records

Heat advisories blanket the region from northern New Jersey to southern Maine, as humidity makes temperatures feel closer to 104 in New York and Boston. Aside from raising the risk of heat stroke, the sultry conditions will likely boost electricity demand as residents in the densely populated Northeast turn to air conditioning to beat back the temperatures.

Power Prices

Wholesale power prices surged early Monday as the heat intensified. For PJM Interconnection LLC, which controls a market stretching from New Jersey to Virginia to Illinois, electricity for delivery during the hour ending 2 p.m. jumped 57% to $39.20 a megawatt-hour, according to Genscape data. The grid operator issued a hot weather alert through 10 p.m. Monday, calling on power-plant owners to delay maintenance that could reduce supplies.

Power demand in New York and other cities has been upended by measures to reduce the spread of coronavirus since March. With Manhattan offices mostly emptied, daytime power use has shifted to where many workers live in Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, the Bronx and Westchester County, testing the grid in residential areas in new ways. Demand Monday was forecast to reach almost 10,000 megawatts, short of the record.

“Temperatures are very hot but not extreme,” said Elliot Gordon, a power market analyst at Genscape. “We’re still seeing 2% to 4% lower demand because of Covid-19, so we probably won’t break any records today” for power use.

Rising demand prompted New York’s grid operator to trigger a program that will pay some Consolidated Edison Inc. residential customers to cut back on use between 4 p.m. and 10 p.m. Monday. That action may be needed again Tuesday.

The oppressive temperatures in New York are partly due to the Bermuda High, a large dome of heat that sits over the Atlantic and can help steer hurricanes and tropical storms. As it edges over the East Coast, it’s sending the temperatures up in New York.

Central Park has reached 90 degrees or warmer 10 times this July, four more than the average going back to 1869, but fewer than the record 20 days set in 1993. While temperatures will ease after Tuesday, they are still forecast to remain in the 90s in New York through Thursday, which would be the fifth-most for a July, according to National Weather Service records.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.