More than 95 million people from Southern California to western Pennsylvania and southern Florida were on alert or warned of extreme heat, meteorologists said. Residents should expect to see temperatures rise well in the 1990s and ‘100s, with heat indicators – a measure of how warm it feels, including humidity and temperature – skyrocketing in some places to three digits. Until 9 p.m. East Wednesday, 17 meteorological stations had already broken their June 15 record high temperatures, said Bryan Jackson, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service, including those in Chicago (96 degrees), Atlanta (99) and Lansing. Mich., (95). In Macon, Ga., Temperatures rose to 104, a fourfold increase from the previous record for the date set in 2011, Jackson said. “When you break a record in June, it’s very important,” he added. “This is a very hot gas mass located in the east-central US”
Severe weather in the USA
Stormy weather was also forecast in areas of southwestern Indiana, southeastern Missouri, western Kentucky and southern Illinois, where temperatures were expected to be warmer until Thursday afternoon. The heat indicators for the next two days will exceed 106 and 107 degrees. In southwestern Michigan and northwestern Ohio, temperatures were expected to reach 110 degrees. Rising temperatures appear to be part of a warm weather pattern that is settling in the lower 48 states before the official start of summer next week. Over the weekend, a heatwave brought record high temperatures to 16 cities in the Southwest to South Plains, and parts of Southwest and South Texas saw dangerously high temperatures last week. Next week, much of the east-central United States will continue to be extremely hot, according to the National Weather Service. Parts of eastern Texas, northern Louisiana and the Mississippi, Ohio and Tennessee valleys, as well as areas in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast, are also at risk of “rapid drought” by the end of next week, the Meteorological Agency added. Parts of the central Great Basin and southwest will also face an increased risk of fire on Saturday, according to the agency’s Weather Forecast Center. In Kansas, about 2,000 cattle died from the heat and humidity over the weekend, said Matthew Lara, a spokesman for the Kansas Department of Health and the Environment. “There was not much wind to cool them,” Lara said of the animals. “It was very hot.” Some 165,000 people in Odessa, Texas, who experienced temperatures of more than 100 degrees Celsius this week were left without drinking water on Tuesday due to a power outage, officials said. A boiling water notice has been issued and is expected to remain in effect until the water pressure is restored and the water is deemed safe for consumption. Meanwhile, the Texas Department of Emergency Management distributed bottled water. Heat waves are becoming more frequent, warmer and longer lasting than in previous decades, scientists say. While linking only one to climate change requires scientific analysis, the federal National Climate Assessment noted in 2018 that the frequency of heat waves had jumped from an average of two per year in the 1960s to six per year by the 2010s. The heatwave in the United States has been extended by 45 days longer than it was in the 1960s, according to the report. This year seems likely to match the trend. Much of the country will continue to have temperatures above normal almost until the end of June, meteorologists said. And a recent report on climate change by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said temperatures above normal in the summer were likely in the United States until August, except for small areas in the Pacific Northwest and North Plains. Overheating has become the norm in places around the world, and researchers are already beginning to look at the ways in which overheating affects a range of people in harsh environments, from athletes and soldiers to ordinary people. Scientists hope their work will help us better understand how many more people will be affected by heat-related illnesses, how frequent and severe their suffering will be, and how to better protect the most vulnerable populations.
