-July 20,2023-
More problems for Faraday Future
Faraday Future announced this past week that its interim finance chief has resigned and the company will restate its financial statements for 2022 and the quarter ended March 2023 after it uncovered some errors, highlighting continued problems at the electric vehicle firm. The company has their manufacturing facility in Hanford.
Reuters reported that the company also said its annual report for 2022, quarters ending September 2022 and March 2023 “should no longer be relied upon” due to certain errors.The company will file restated financial statements and the move will not affect its vehicle delivery timeline, it added. The company needs to reach a $1 per share stock valuation to keep it from being delisted on the NASDAQ. The price this week of stock is around 28 cents.
South Valley reservoirs are brimming
With these temperatures, it is no surprise that rivers in the southern part of the San Joaquin Valley are running fast – full of snowmelt. From Lake Isabella in the south to Millerton in the north, our lakes are near full or already spilling over in the case of Friant Dam above Fresno. The temperature this week reached 91 degrees at the 6600 ft elevation in Giant Forest, sending what is left of the snow down to Lake Kaweah – now holding 178,000AF out of a capacity of 185,000. Nearby Success Lake, above Porterville, sits at 75,000AF out of 84,000AF capacity. Kings River’s Pine Flat is holding 955,000AF -just short of its 1 million AF capacity, The Corp is releasing more water than is coming in.
Lake Isabella now stands at 536,00AF with 568,000 AF capacity. As mentioned, Friant Dam has been spilling for more than a week.The upshot – our foothill reservoirs are well stocked for the next season that could be wet again in 2024.Precip in the Tulare Lake Basin this water year is 184% of average -just behind the 83’ and 68’ water years.
Forecast: expect moderate to strong El Nino this winter
NOAA is predicting a better than 90 percent chance that an El Nino weather pattern will be happening this winter with the latest forecast suggesting a moderate to strong El Nino. The warming Pacific waters will favor a good chance for a wet winter across mid and southern California as shown in this June 15 map.
More 100 degree days
Forecast for Hanford suggests we will be above 100 degrees F for the rest of July. That will mean 26 days in July 2023 at or above 100. That is more days than last year but less than July 2021 when every day but 2 was above 100.
Cool off by painting your roof white
In 2021, researchers at Purdue University announced that they had developed the whitest paint on Earth. The color is so white that it can reflect over 98% of light. This is particularly useful because light generates heat — and we – here on Earth- are running a bit hot these days.
Business Insider reports if used on a building, the paint would reduce the temperature on the surface, lowering the temps inside and decreasing the need for air conditioning. But what if there was an even bigger application, like reducing the temperature of the entire planet?
According to Jeremy Munday, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of California, Davis, who researches clean technology, if a material like Purdue’s paint covered 1-2% of the Earth’s surface, the amount of light being bounced back into space would reduce the amount of heat being absorbed by the planet enough to stabilize global temperatures. In other words, it could do a lot to solve climate change. Plus, Munday told the New York Times, the amount of light being bounced back into space wouldn’t harm the cosmos very much. “It’d be like pouring a cup of regular water into the ocean,” he told the Times.
Kings County has lowest cancer rate
A July 12 report from media company Stacker compiled the counties with the highest cancer rates in California using data from the CDC. Cancer rates fluctuate by jobs: Higher rates of cancer can be found among meat industry and rubber manufacturing workers, and farmers. Despite that,Kings County has the lowest cancer rate of the 58 counties, says their report.Kings cancer rate per 100,000, 2016-2020: 322.7 – Age-adjusted rate per 100,000, 2016-2020: 364.4. The county with the highest rate is Amador with a cancer rate per 100,000, 2016-2020: 777.0 – Age-adjusted rate per 100,000, 2016-2020: 434.9.
Electric truck stop with 31 charging stations
The Bakersfield Californian reports that Kern County’s first all-electric truck stop is on track to open 31 charging stations this year — about half of them to be powered by solar panels on-site.