August 20, 2020 • Local News
Are El Pasoans using more water in this unusually hot weather?
Story Link: https://kfoxtv.com/community/just-ask-john/are-el-pasoans-using-more-water-in-this-unusually-hot-weather
Are El Pasoans using more water in this unusually hot weather?
El Paso, Texas — You've probably noticed a lot of stories recently on KFOX14 focusing on how our hotter than usual summer weather has led to a spike in electricity use which has led to skyrocketing electric bills and sporadic power outages.
That led me to wonder: Has the hot weather also led to a spike in water use?
I reached out to El Paso Water for answers and learned, that indeed, as the weather gets hotter, water use soars.
To give you an example, on Aug. 5th, the National Weather Service reported El Paso's high temperature was 104 degrees. On that day, the water utility showed water usage topped 156 million gallons. Then, three days later, on Aug. 8th, the high temperature had dropped by five degrees, to 99 degrees, and water usage had dropped by nearly 25 million gallons.
El Paso Water figures also show that overall water use is up substantially this year compared to recent years and that probably means something else is causing the spike besides our recent hot weather.
It's probably the pandemic. Albuquerque's water utility recently reported that water use in New Mexico's biggest city was up by more than one billion gallons during the first half of this year compared to last year and officials there believe part of the reason for that is the fact that a lot more people have been stuck at home and are working from home because of COVID-19 restrictions.
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