Just curious. I heard the term “brownout” a few times when I lived in NJ, but I was too young to understand what that meant, except that it meant I couldn’t watch TV. Thanks in advance!
Well I live in California and this is really common.
Blackout - Total loss of electrical power.
Brownout - Electrical power is disrupted and there are dimming lights, not enough juice for running specific electrical items.
But check this site out for verification and other items:
http://www.energyvortex.com/energydictionary/blackout__brownout__brown_power__rolling_blackout.html
I see. Thank you!
There may be a different derivation of that word: when I was in Manila about 10 years ago, a “brownout” was a regular power outage that only lasted for a few hours (their power stations being unable to cope with the demands of the city on a day-to-day basis, they would decide on certain areas being excluded from distribution for about 4 hours at a time).
In the US, those are called “rolling blackouts.” That’s when power is cut off in an area, then turned back on later when another area is cut off.
A brownout is when they cut the voltage (instead of 110V, it might be cut back to 90V). It’s much worse for motors than a blackout and can wreck freezers, air conditioners, etc.
I’m more familiar with jjimm’s definition. In Saigon, I often saw complete power failure for seconds or minutes. These were called “brownouts”.
Why isn’t Lieu(sp?) here yet?
Oh, -that- kind of brownout.
Never mind.