#PacificWatch: The Hoover Dam, the drought, and brownouts. @JCBliss

Photo: The Hoover Dam (formerly Boulder Dam) from across the Colorado River; from the series, Ansel Adams, Photographs of National Parks and Monuments, compiled 1941–1942, documenting the period ca. 1933–1942..

CBS Eye on the World with John Batchelor
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#PacificWatch: The Hoover Dam, the drought, and brownouts. @JCBliss

Flex Alert extended through Friday as heat wave sears California - Despite assurances that the power grid remains stable, California’s energy operator has issued statewide Flex Alerts for electricity conservation Thursday and Friday evenings as temperatures around the region continue to break records. Los Angeles Times

Bay Area heat advisory takes effect today. Here's where it could reach 110 this week -- In Santa Rosa, where a heat wave could push temperatures to the hottest levels recorded in nearly a century, the manager of Dave’s Market was stocking freezers with fresh-made ice cream in preparation for Thursday’s peak heat. San Francisco Chronicle

New fire restrictions are in place this summer around Tahoe as wildfire season ramps up -- This summer, don’t expect to build any wood campfires in the Lake Tahoe area. Sacramento Bee 

The last thing California needed: Drought adds to electricity woes as hydro power dries up -- California’s shaky power grid is on a collision course with an epic drought that’s depleting a major source of supply: hydroelectricity. Sacramento Bee

As drought intensifies, state warns users to stop pumping water from major rivers -- In a sign of worsening drought, the state on Tuesday warned about 4,300 users to stop diverting water from the San Joaquin-Sacramento Delta watershed, stretching from Fresno to the Oregon border. CalMatters 

A mission to rescue 469 doomed trout at the Arroyo Seco fans Pasadena water war -- In an era of increasing drought and nearly back-to-back wildfires, state conservationists have been working overtime in the San Gabriel Mountains to rescue frogs, fish and other species facing potential oblivion by rounding up populations of threatened animals and transporting them to safer areas. Los Angeles Times 

Drought forces state to cut off water to thousands of farms, water agencies -- Thousands of farms and water agencies that rely on flows from California’s vast delta watershed, including landowners and water suppliers in the Bay Area, are being told to stop drawing water from rivers and creeks because there’s not enough to go around. San Francisco Chronicle

Tulare County’s never-ending drought brings dried up wells and plenty of misery -- Severe drought is gripping most of California, but its misery isn’t spread equally. While most of the state compares today’s extreme conditions to previous droughts, people in Tulare County speak of drought — in the singular, as in a continuous state of being. CalMatters 

A problem Silicon Valley can’t solve: Drought, quake risk -- California is known for its history of natural disasters, and in the Silicon Valley, two potential calamities — drought and earthquake risk — are converging to dry up water supplies in the hub of the state’s tech economy. Los Angeles Times