Soaring temperatures threaten tens of millions of Americans

Brutally high temperatures are threatening tens of millions of Americans, as numerous cities braced to break records under a relentless heat dome that has baked parts of the country all week.

The National Weather Service has warned on Saturday of an "extremely hot and dangerous weekend," with daytime highs routinely ranging between 10 and 20 degrees Fahrenheit above normal in the US West.

Residents of central and southern California, for example, could expect to see thermometres peaking at 38 to 43 degrees Celsius, it said.

By mid-day Saturday, California's famous Death Valley, one of the hottest places on Earth, had reached a sizzling 48C, with Sunday's peak predicted to soar as high as 54C.

Even overnight lows there could exceed 38C.

The heat is forecast to remain anchored over the West for the weekend, "growing hotter in the South by early next week."

Authorities have been sounding the alarm for days, advising people to avoid outdoor activities in the daytime and to be on the watch for signs of dehydration, which can quickly become fatal in such temperatures.

Hardest-hit areas

In the hardest-hit areas, residents face a daily endurance marathon against the Sun.

The Arizona state capital of Phoenix has recorded 16 straight days above 43C.

It had reached 43C by noon on Saturday, en route to an expected 46C.

Las Vegas, Nevada, was broiling amid similar temperatures.

In Texas, the border city of El Paso had seen 29 consecutive days of temperatures topping 38C.

At a construction site outside Houston, Texas, a 28-year-old worker who gave his name only as Juan helped complete a wall in the blazing heat.

"Just when I take a drink of water, I get dizzy, I want to vomit because of the heat," he told the AFP news agency.

"I need something else, a Coca-Cola, a Gatorade – and cold – just to be able to keep going."

Residents of the Texas metropolis have been asked to conserve energy from 2:00 to 10:00 pm on Saturday until Monday by provider Reliant Energy, in an attempt to mitigate high demand.

One local news station in the city, KPRC, heralded the prospect of "finally seeing an end to this heatwave" – by Sunday of next week.

Unusual heatwave

Heatwaves are occurring more often and more intensely in major cities across the United States, according to the federal Environmental Protection Agency, with a frequency of six per year during the 2010s and 2020s compared to two per year during the 1960s.

"This heatwave is NOT typical desert heat," the National Weather Service's Las Vegas branch tweeted, specifying that "its long duration, extreme daytime temperatures, & warm nights" were unusual.

In Canada, which is suffering from warm temperatures combined with months of below-average rainfall, the amount of land burned by devastating wildfires climbed to 24.7 million acres so far this year on Saturday.

The prior all-time high occurred in 1989, when 18 million acres were burned over the course of an entire year, according to national figures.

"We find ourselves this year with figures that are worse than our most pessimistic scenarios," Yan Boulanger, a researcher at Canada's natural resources ministry, told AFP.

Smoke from the wildfires was meanwhile creating unhealthy air quality conditions in parts of the upper-central United States – similar to episodes in June when blazes in the Canadian province of Quebec cloaked the US East Coast in a noxious haze.

While it can be hard to attribute a particular weather event to the climate crisis, scientists insist that global heating – linked to humanity's dependence on fossil fuels – is responsible for the multiplication and intensification of heat waves in the world.

The US heatwave comes after the EU's climate-monitoring service said the world saw its hottest June on record last month.

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Source: TRT