SUMMER SCORCH 2021: Soaring Temperatures Under The Heat Dome

June 2021 was the hottest month in over a century; not just by one or two degrees - 4 degrees!

Here's a thermal mapping by Weatherbell from a report by Andrew Freedman 14 hours ago earlier today in Axios

 

 

Forecast maximum temperatures (darker red shading represents the hottest temperatures, in the upper 90s to low 100s, Fahrenheit). July 29. Image: WeatherBell

Heat dome sends temperatures soaring from Oregon to Louisiana

Andrew Freedman

Axios | 2021-07-29T15:44:21.165198Z

". . .

Why it matters: The occurrence of yet another heat wave during a drought in the West is ratcheting up wildfire risks. The heat itself is a major public health risk, as extreme heat is typically the biggest annual weather-related cause of mortality in the U.S.

The big picture: Heat watches, warnings and advisories are in effect across 19 states, from Portland, Oregon, east to St. Louis, and running all the way south to New Orleans. Temperatures of between 10°F and 15°F above average in these areas, along with high humidity, pose a public health threat.

• This heat wave, which is forecast to continue through the weekend in many areas, is part of a series of extreme heat events that have turned deadly this summer across the U.S. and Canada.
• In Oregon and far north-central sections of California, high temperatures could hit 110°F in a few spots, the National Weather Service warned, with the predicted high in Portland soaring to just under the century mark on Friday.
• In inland portions of Washington state, unusually hot conditions have prompted the issuance of heat advisories through Saturday.
• The heat is aggravating fire weather conditions, and "Red Flag" warnings are in effect in areas where some large blazes — such as the Bootleg Fire, the nation's largest — are already burning.
• A total of 82 large wildfires are burning in the West amid extreme heat and drought, routinely forming towering pyrocumulus clouds above the blazes. Upper-level winds are carrying smoke more than 1,000 miles east, fouling air quality in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic states and sending smoke across the Atlantic Ocean and into Europe.
• The heat is being exacerbated by an ongoing extreme drought — the worst so far this century — in the West. Dry soils allow incoming solar radiation to heat the air more efficiently, thereby drying out the environment even more and adding to warming in a feedback loop.

Details: Read more > Andrew Freedman. Axios