New York City's Electric Usage Sets All-Time Record

By Kristina Pydynowski, Senior Meteorologist

July 20,2013; 5:02PM,EDT

 

 

 

Friday's intense heat and humidity led to New York City setting an all-time peak electric usage record.
Electric usage in New York City and neighboring Westchester County topped out at 13,322 Megawatts (MW) at 5 p.m. EDT Friday, according to Con Edison.
That breaks the previous all-time peak usage record, which was 13,189 MW from July 22, 2011.
Temperatures at New York City's Central Park soared to 96 degrees on Friday.
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As dew points generally held in the lower 70s and sunshine remained in control, AccuWeather.com RealFeel® temperatures eclipsed the century mark during the midday and early afternoon hours.
Friday's high of 96 degrees fell short of challenging the day's record of 102 degrees from 1977. However, Friday's low of 83 degrees broke the day's long-standing warmest low temperature record of 81 degrees from 1878.
A high of 84 degrees and a low of 69 degrees are more common on July 19.

Vendors, shoppers and pedestrians take shelter from the sun under umbrellas in New York's Chinatown, Friday, July 19, 2013. (AP Photo/Jon Gerberg)
New York City and the entire Northeast's I-95 corridor is enduring one more day of intense heat and humidity this Saturday before severe thunderstorms late in the day bring the heat wave to an end for Sunday.
Once temperatures hit the 90-degree mark in New York City on Saturday, it will extend this current heat wave to seven days and mark the longest heat wave for the city since the nine-day heat wave in August 2002.
A heat wave in New York City is defined as three consecutive days of temperatures reaching or exceeding 90 degrees.