A long-running heat wave that has already shattered previous records across the U.S. persisted on Sunday, baking parts of the West with dangerous temperatures that caused the death of a motorcyclist in Death Valley and held the East in its hot and humid grip.
An excessive heat warning — the National Weather Service’s highest alert — was in effect for about 36 million people, or about 10% of the population, said NWS meteorologist Bryan Jackson. Dozens of locations in the West and Pacific Northwest tied or broke previous heat records.
Many areas in Northern California surpassed 110 degrees (43.3 C), with the city of Redding topping out at a record 119 (48.3 C). Phoenix set a new daily record Sunday for the warmest low temperature: it never got below 92 F (33.3 C).
A high temperature of 128 F (53.3 C) was recorded Saturday and Sunday at Death Valley National Park in eastern California, where a visitor died Saturday from heat exposure and another person was hospitalized, officials said.
I’ve read that it probably won’t be, since we had El Niño this year too, making the year hotter than it otherwise would’ve been.
It’s not going to be fun next year when we’re not breaking quite as many heat records, and then we’ve got people saying “See? Last year was just a fluke. Climate change isn’t a big deal!”
Most likely, yeah, but then that’s only going to last for a few years at most. If you look at it in groups of 5 years together or so, I don’t think it ever has been colder since like the 90s maybe. Or early 00s.
I don’t disagree one bit. I don’t think most people have that level of scientific literacy, though…let alone reading comprehension.
(Okay, “most” might not be the right word, but still…lol)
Remind me one year! Or, y’know, - is that feature even in lemmy? Eh, whatever. We’ll see. :)