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Monday’s high at 4:21 p.m. was just two degrees shy of the record of 101 set 70 years ago, and 13 degrees above the normal temperature for the date, said meteorologist Dan Jones of the National Weather Service office in La Crosse.
Temperatures are expected to cool to the upper 80s today, but highs in the 90s are predicted for the rest of the week, with a chance of showers Wednesday, Jones said.
Weekend highs should be a more balmy mid-80s, he said.
With temperatures making a run at triple digits for the third straight day, officials at
La Crosse’s two hospitals said they saw a corresponding rise in the number of heat-related cases over the weekend and Monday.
About 12 to 15 people were treated at Franciscan Skemp Medical Center for heat exhaustion, fainting and shortness of breath. Several also came in with heart problems, but officials didn’t know if those were heat-related.
“We received a fair number of calls because of the heat,” said Tom Carpenter, a Gundersen Lutheran paramedic. “A few people collapsed in the heat, and we’ve seen a number of people with respiratory distress.”
Xcel Energy set a record for use Monday when energy consumption reached 1,393 megawatts, said Chris Oullette, company spokesman. The previous record, set Thursday, was 1,236 megawatts, he said.
Dairyland Power Cooperative’s use reached 874 megawatts, topping the 858- megawatt mark set last July, said company spokeswoman Katie Thomson.
Oullette and Thomson said their companies had no trouble keeping pace with the higher demand.
But the heat and lack of rain prompted officials in West Salem, Wis., on Monday to ask that residents reduce their water use. Water use had increased to more than 1.1 million gallons a day, compared with normal daily usage of about 450,000 gallons, according to the village’s public works department.
Residents should limit lawn watering to every other day and use any other means possible to decrease usage, officials said. The best time for watering is during the cooler early morning or late evening hours to minimize evaporation.
La Crosse has no plans to ask residents to decrease watering, as the city has an ample water supply, said city Water Utility Director Mark Johnson.
The only difficulty that could arise is if wells go down due to a power outage, Johnson said. However, some wells have generators, he said, so the utility could provide water even if the entire city lost electricity.
Onalaska, Wis., and La Crescent, Minn., have no city water consumption policies in place. However, Onalaska might be looking at issuing a voluntary water conservation advisory — asking that residents water only every other day, and not between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. — later in the week, said Jarrod Holter, Onalaska’s city engineer.
Holter said water consumption dropped by 1.5 million gallons a day, or about 25 percent, after the water use guidelines went into effect last year.
Onalaska residents used six million gallons of water Sunday, more than half the city’s capacity. “That’s just asking for trouble,” Holter said.
Tribune reporters Anne Jungen, Joan Kent, Autumn Grooms and Terry Rindfleisch contributed to this story, as did Randy Erickson, editor of the Coulee News, Onalaska Community Life and Holmen Courier newspapers.
Keeping cool for less
Tips from Xcel Energy and Dairyland Power Cooperative on keeping your home cool while conserving energy and lowering electricity bills:
