AUSTIN, Texas — Triple-digit temperatures continue to roast the state, where it is so hot that some roads are literally melting.

It’s so hot that Austin’s El Arroyo restaurant marked the city’s record-breaking 18th day above 100 degrees Fahrenheit on Thursday by using its famed sign, always good for a daily laugh, to vent about the ridiculous heat.

ERCOT’s meteorologist stopped just short of saying the state will see record heat this summer.

Chris Coleman, ERCOT | © RTO Insider LLC

“I avoid saying ‘guarantee,’ but this is as close as you’ll get from a weatherman,” Chris Coleman told ERCOT’s Board of Directors on June 21.

Coleman said Texas’ weather is “running hotter” than it was at this same point in 2011, the state’s hottest and driest summer on record. With the state coming off its warmest April and second-warmest May on record, Texas should “approach” 2011’s extremes if summer continues with very limited rainfall, he said.

Unlike last summer, highs will frequently exceed 105 F, Coleman said. Austin has already broken 100 F more than 21 times this month, a record. 

“It would be very bold to say we’re going to beat 2011, but everything now is falling into place,” he said. “We’ll at least challenge the record set in 2011.”

The high temperatures have resulted in record demand for ERCOT. The grid operator has set four new records this month for peak demand, the latest coming Thursday when it hit 76.6 GW. The old mark of 74.8 GW was set in August 2019; ERCOT has projected the system would reach of peak of 77.3 GW this summer.

ERCOT has about 91 GW of capacity available when every generator is running. It has been operating with a cushion of up to 6.5 GW of reserves to ensure there is enough power to meet demand as part of its conservative operations posture.

An Austin restaurant’s sign reveals how Texans feel about the summer weather. | El Arroyo

Peter Lake, chair of the Texas Public Utility Commission, said during a hearing before the Texas House of Representatives’ State Affairs Committee on Wednesday that ERCOT would have been “on the brink of rolling blackouts” six times in the last 12 months had it not built in the extra margin.

ERCOT has yet to issue an operation alert this summer, though interim CEO Brad Jones did ask Texans to manage their consumption last month in what was later termed a request. Several retail electric providers on Friday also sent emails to their customers asking them to conserve electricity during the afternoon.

“ERCOT is monitoring conditions closely and will deploy all available tools to manage the grid reliably,” the grid operator said in an email Thursday.

Since April, it has issued four operating condition notices, its lowest-level communication to the market in anticipation of possible emergency conditions. The latest was issued Thursday and expired Sunday.

The National Weather Service said a tropical low is expected to bring rain to the Gulf Coast and Central Texas this week, lowering temperatures to the low 90s and 80s and offering some hope the heat will relent.

“You’re going to need something to stop [the heat],” Coleman said. “Rainfall, either a series of fronts bringing 2 to 4 inches of rain multiple times, or a hurricane. But it’s pretty hard to get fronts past June.”

Indeed. According to the Climate Prediction Center’s initial outlook for July, it will once again be a hotter-than-normal month.