A dangerous, unrelenting heat wave scorched much of the south-central and western U.S. on Thursday, bringing near-record temperatures and an increased risk of wildfires to a large swath of the nation.
As of Thursday morning, more than 113 million Americans were under some form of heat alert, the National Weather Service said. The alerts, which include excessive heat warnings and heat advisories, stretched some 2,000 miles from Oregon to Louisiana.
Locations including Phoenix and Las Vegas, which were both under excessive heat warnings, could each challenge all-time record highs over the next few days, AccuWeather said, as temperatures soar above 110 degrees.
“Unfortunately, the long-term outlook through the weekend and into next week is for an increasingly significant and oppressive heat wave,” the weather service said.
Meanwhile, while the U.S. suffers with extreme heat, the planet as a whole just endured its warmest June on record, climate scientists reported Thursday.
Heat can be dangerous and deadly
The extreme heat and blazing sunshine can cause people to become rapidly dehydrated, experts warn. People are urged to avoid strenuous activity during the daylight hours, to increase their intake of fluids and seek an air-conditioned environment when possible to avoid the potential of heat exhaustion and heatstroke, AccuWeather cautioned.
“Please plan accordingly, this is not the time to be hiking or be outside for long durations,” the weather service’s Los Angeles office said on Twitter. “If you need to work outside, shift hours to the early morning, take frequent breaks and hydrate!”
Extreme heat is the deadliest weather-related event in the United States. It kills more people than tornadoes or hurricanes – combined.
Federal agencies report about 700 Americans die each year from extreme heat, but some studies estimate that figure could be closer to 1,300 deaths a year. Another study found up to 20,000 deaths may have been linked to extreme heat from 2008 to 2017.
June was globe’s hottest on record, NOAA and NASA say
June 2023 also marked the 47th-consecutive June and the 532nd-consecutive month with temperatures above the 20th-century average, NOAA reported.
In addition, NOAA said the first half of 2023 ranked as the third-warmest on record, with a global temperature of 1.82 degrees above the 20th-century average. There is now a 97% chance that 2023 will end up as one of the five hottest years on record.
The European Copernicus Climate Change Service and Berkeley Earth also said it was the hottest June on record.
Scientists say the warmth the planet is enduring this year is due to a combination of human-caused climate warming and the strengthening El Niño climate pattern in the Pacific Ocean.
“The onset of El Niño has implications for placing 2023 in the running for warmest year on record when combined with climate-warming background,” University of Georgia meteorology professor Marshall Shepherd said last month.
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Death Valley could hit 130 degrees
Infamous hot spot Death Valley, California, home of the world’s all-time highest temperature and one of the hottest places on Earth, could reach 130 degrees over the weekend, forecasters said. The world record air temperature of 134 degrees was set in Death Valley on July 10, 1913, at the Furnace Creek observation site, AccuWeather said.
Wildfire worries on the rise
Meanwhile, California’s wildfire season was ramping up amid the hot, dry conditions with a series of blazes erupting across the state this week, said Secretary Wade Crowfoot of the Natural Resources Agency.
“As we get deeper into the summer and vegetation that grew up during the wet spring dries out, we are seeing an uptick in wildfire activity,” Crowfoot said Wednesday during a state media briefing.
A ‘clear climate change signal’
Sure, it’s summer and it’s supposed to be hot. But the intensity and duration of this heat wave in cities like Phoenix is being supercharged by human-caused climate change, experts say. “Of course we expect hot summers (in Arizona), but part of what we see with climate change is longer and more intense heat waves,” said Kathy Jacobs, who directs the University of Arizona’s Center for Climate Adaptation Science and Solutions.
Still, the current heat wave’s intensity and duration is “not what we would expect in the absence of climate change. There’s a clear climate change signal here,” Jacobs said, “but you can’t say which proportion is directly attributable to climate change.”
Contributing: Adrianna Rodriquez, USA TODAY; Brandon Loomis, The Arizona Republic; The Associated Press
