From California to New Hampshire, a nation bakes
More than a third of the population in the United States has been advised to stay indoors as a dangerous heat wave is on track to hit millions more people in the days to come.
“Anomalously high temps are expected to persist across most of the country through this week, with triple-digit temps lingering in parts of the South Central US & a surge of #heat entering the Pacific NW by early next week,” warned the National Weather Service in its latest tweet.
More than 100 million people were placed under excessive heat warnings as of Tuesday. Altogether, the heat alerts cover 28 states, stretching from California to New Hampshire.
According to the agency’s definition, an excessive heat warning is issued when the maximum temperature is expected to reach 40.6 C or higher for at least two days. A heat advisory is put in place when the maximum temperature rises to 37.8 C or higher for two days.
The sweltering temperatures have wilted parts of southwest and south central US for days. Between Tuesday and Wednesday, nearly 40 cities across the region could see high temperatures that shattered previous records, the weather service said.
On Wednesday, the entire state of Oklahoma topped 39.4 C or higher, according to the Oklahoma Mesonet, a joint environmental monitoring project between the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University.
The brutal heat has led to wildfires, water main breaks, a heightened level of power consumption as well as heat-related emergencies in multiple states.
The extreme heat and lack of rain have caused the ground in Fort Worth, Texas, to shift, resulting in “a usually high number of water main breaks” in the city this summer.
“Through 8 am Monday, Fort Worth Water had 476 main breaks in 2022, with 221 of those in the past 90 days. The telling number is the 182 in the last 30 days — over 38 percent of the yearly total,” read a post on Monday on the city’s website.
A security camera of a homeowner in Scottsdale, Arizona, captured a UPS driver collapsing on his porch on July 14, a day when the high reached 110 degrees in the city.
Ambulance crews across some of Oklahoma’s largest cities are dealing with a surge in heat-related health emergencies, reported The New York Times.
In the meantime, first responders are battling more than a dozen active wildfires in Texas as the hot temperatures, winds and dry conditions continue to fuel fires.