An extreme heat wave is pushing eastward across the US on Monday, covering much of the country in heat warnings and advisories. For 170 million people or so, the next few days will not be much fun.
As of around 9 am on Monday, the National Weather Service has issued either a heat advisory, extreme heat watch, or extreme heat warning for all or parts of 30 states, from the eastern edges of Nebraska and Texas through the coasts of South Carolina, Maine, and everywhere in between. The NWS said this will be a “prolonged and intense heat wave,” with “extremely dangerous levels of heat.” Some of the most hazardous areas will include Illinois moving eastward through Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, as well as south of there in Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina.
“Light winds, sunny days, and lack of overnight cooling will significantly increase the danger,” the NWS warned. So far, at least, media outlets have largely avoided advertising this obviously deadly situation with glorious beach scenes, but given their track record let’s not count those particular chickens just yet. City health departments like that of Baltimore and Philadelphia started issuing “code red” sorts of alerts, warning residents that will see multiple triple-digit temperature days to take precautions and check on vulnerable friends or family.
Overnight lows will stay disturbingly high — likely in the 80s for some urban areas — meaning people without good access to air conditioning won’t have as much chance to cool off and reset. It could get very bad; it is also only June.
It isn’t unreasonable to expect that in a week or so, the scientists at World Weather Attribution will tell us again that such an event, relatively early in the season, in this part of the world would be more or less impossible without the influence of the 1.3 degrees C or so of warming. That’s just where we live now.
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