Sign In or Create an Account.

By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy

Climate

Heat Records Don’t Stand a Chance

The week in heat, July 22-28.

Seattle.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

While the Northeast might start breathing more easily this week, the heat will intensify again in the West. Keep reading to discover what sweltering lies in store.

The Pacific Northwest takes its turn in the hot seat

The weekend brough intense heat to the Northwest, with many cities inching close to their all-time temperature records. While the potential for record-breaking heat is set to decrease throughout the week, temperatures in the region will remain above average, Bob Oravec, lead forecaster with the National Weather Service, told me. Cities like Spokane, Washington and Boise, Idaho will continue to see triple-digit temperatures until at least Wednesday. In fact, on Thursday, Boise might see its 10th day in a row above 100 degrees, breaking the city’s record.

The region also struggled this weekend — and will continue to struggle this summer — with increased wildfire activity. On Saturday, residents of Baker County had to evacuate as a fire spread to residential areas. As of yesterday, Oregon’s firefighters were dealing with 81 active fires, burning through over 500,000 acres of the state. This week, a high pressure area combined with moisture coming from the Pacific Ocean may contribute to thunderstorms — but not enough precipitation to break the dry conditions in the region. The pattern will increase the likelihood of wildfires, as lighting might spark blazes.

  • Looking Ahead: While the Northwest will experience lower temperatures near the end of the week, conditions will remain scorching. The brief respite comes with bad news for cities a little to the right on the map as the heat shifts eastward. Populations in Colorado, Montana, Wyoming, and others in the region will be the next ones to live through 100-plus degrees.

Relief is on the way for the mid-Atlantic

All across the East Coast temperatures shattered records last week. On July 16, thermometers in Washington, D.C. reached 104 degrees for just the 13th time in history. The next day the District capped off a run of four days with temperatures above 101 degrees, setting — you guessed it — a new record. And that was just the heat — factoring in humidity, the weather felt more like 108 degrees at its hottest.

In Maryland, summer camps had to move activities indoors for the campers’ safety. Last Monday, only 75 children attended the Horizon Day Camp in Baltimore County. Usually there are around 200 campers.

The heat wave also brought back transit issues across the region. Commuters in the D.C. area and in New York struggled through train cancellations and delays.

  • Looking Ahead: Thankfully, more agreeable temperatures are in store for this week. “On any given day, the temperatures might be one or two degrees above average or below average,” Oravec told me. He added that other regions of the country will also get a break this week. Parts of the Central and Southern Plains will see below average temperatures, he told me.

Arizona is investigating hundreds of heat-related deaths, with no end in sight

In Arizona County alone, more than 300 deaths are being linked to record-breaking heat, NBC News reported on Thursday. Also, 23 deaths in the county have been confirmed to have been caused by heat or heat-related complications — and those numbers are up to date only through July 13, meaning they don’t include last week’s heat. But unlike other parts of the country, the Southwest will continue to broil this week.

“Highs will be closer to historical averages in Phoenix next week, but still above 110 in Las Vegas most days, which could challenge some daily records again later next week,” Dan Pydynowski, senior meteorologist at AccuWeather, told me.

The West will get the worst

Sorry, California. According to Oravec, for at least the month of August, most of the extreme heat in the U.S. will remain concentrated in the West. That’s not the worst of it, even — conditions will also be very dry. “There’s really not a very good chance of rain across the West, especially across parts of the Northwest and the Great Basin where there’s going to be a lot of record high temperatures,” Oravec told me. When hot and dry conditions occur together, that means wildfires.

On the bright side, CNETreported that California’s investment in solar-powered batteries might have kept the state’s lights on during a heat wave that lasted through July 12. The batteries provided an additional 10,000 megawatts of power.

  • Looking Ahead: Another scorching heat wave started to make its way to California on Thursday, and the extreme temperatures are set to continue. Up through the middle of the week, Northern California can expect consecutive days with temperatures in the triple digits. “The interior of California and the Intermountain West could once again challenge some daily record highs. For example, Fresno, California will have highs near 110 degrees F from Monday through Wednesday, which can challenge records those days,” Pydynowski told me. Still, the worst may be behind them — this new wave likely won’t be as intense as the one Californians just went through, he said..

Tourists’ favorite European countries bake in the heat

Sweltering heat continues to spread across Europe. Early last week, Italy placed several cities under its most severe heat alert. The country also reported an increased number of wildfires — two firefighters died while putting out a fire in Southern Italy.

That said, most of the extreme heat hitting the region seems to be in the past now. “If we are looking for extreme heat, chances of that being widespread across Italy to Ukraine looks to be on the low side for the rest of the summer,” Pydynowski told me. In the second half of August, temperatures might return to the high 90s for a while, at least.

In Greece, authorities shut down the Acropolis on Wednesday to protect tourists and workers from extreme temperatures. Earlier in the day, before the closure, Red Cross volunteers were distributing bottled water to those waiting in line for the attraction. Several Greek islands have also been dealing with severe water shortages, and some have resorted to desalinating seawater for drinking and banning the refilling of swimming pools. Next week, the interior and coastal regions of the country will continue to see temperatures around 95 degrees, with the possibility of reaching 104 degrees.

  • Looking Ahead: Spain got its first heat wave of the summer this past week, and while things cooled off some this weekend, heat will pick up again this week, “with daytime high temperatures near [104 degrees] in some places such as Madrid by the middle of the week,” Pydynowski told me.

You’re out of free articles.

Subscribe today to experience Heatmap’s expert analysis 
of climate change, clean energy, and sustainability.
To continue reading
Create a free account or sign in to unlock more free articles.
or
Please enter an email address
By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy
Economy

AM Briefing: Liberation Day

On trade turbulence, special election results, and HHS cuts

Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ Tariffs Loom
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Current conditions: A rare wildfire alert has been issued for London this week due to strong winds and unseasonably high temperatures • Schools are closed on the Greek islands of Mykonos and Paros after a storm caused intense flooding • Nearly 50 million people in the central U.S. are at risk of tornadoes, hail, and historic levels of rain today as a severe weather system barrels across the country.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Trump to roll out broad new tariffs

President Trump today will outline sweeping new tariffs on foreign imports during a “Liberation Day” speech in the White House Rose Garden scheduled for 4 p.m. EST. Details on the levies remain scarce. Trump has floated the idea that they will be “reciprocal” against countries that impose fees on U.S. goods, though the predominant rumor is that he could impose an across-the-board 20% tariff. The tariffs will be in addition to those already announced on Chinese goods, steel and aluminum, energy imports from Canada, and a 25% fee on imported vehicles, the latter of which comes into effect Thursday. “The tariffs are expected to disrupt the global trade in clean technologies, from electric cars to the materials used to build wind turbines,” explained Josh Gabbatiss at Carbon Brief. “And as clean technology becomes more expensive to manufacture in the U.S., other nations – particularly China – are likely to step up to fill in any gaps.” The trade turbulence will also disrupt the U.S. natural gas market, with domestic supply expected to tighten, and utility prices to rise. This could “accelerate the uptake of coal instead of gas, and result in a swell in U.S. power emissions that could accelerate climate change,” Reutersreported.

Keep reading...Show less
Yellow
Podcast

The Least-Noticed Climate Scandal of the Trump Administration

Rob and Jesse catch up on the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund with former White House official Kristina Costa.

Lee Zeldin.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

The Inflation Reduction Act dedicated $27 billion to build a new kind of climate institution in America — a network of national green banks that could lend money to companies, states, schools, churches, and housing developers to build more clean energy and deploy more next-generation energy technology around the country.

It was an innovative and untested program. And the Trump administration is desperately trying to block it. Since February, Trump’s criminal justice appointees — led by Ed Martin, the interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia — have tried to use criminal law to undo the program. After failing to get the FBI and Justice Department to block the flow of funds, Trump officials have successfully gotten the program’s bank partner to freeze relevant money. The new green banks have sued to gain access to the money.

Keep reading...Show less
Adaptation

Funding Cuts Are Killing Small Farmers’ Trust in Climate Policy

That trust was hard won — and it won’t be easily regained.

A barn.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Spring — as even children know — is the season for planting. But across the country, tens of thousands of farmers who bought seeds with the help of Department of Agriculture grants are hesitating over whether or not to put them in the ground. Their contractually owed payments, processed through programs created under the Biden administration, have been put on pause by the Trump administration, leaving the farmers anxious about how to proceed.

Also anxious are staff at the sustainability and conservation-focused nonprofits that provided technical support and enrollment assistance for these grants, many of whom worry that the USDA grant pause could undermine the trust they’ve carefully built with farmers over years of outreach. Though enrollment in the programs was voluntary, the grants were formulated to serve the Biden administration’s Justice40 priority of investing in underserved and minority communities. Those same communities tend to be wary of collaborating with the USDA due to its history of overlooking small and family farms, which make up 90% of the farms in the U.S. and are more likely to be women- or minority-owned, in favor of large operations, as well as its pattern of disproportionately denying loans to Black farmers. The Biden administration had counted on nonprofits to leverage their relationships with farmers in order to bring them onto the projects.

Keep reading...Show less
Green