Vocapedia >
Earth >
Weather > Extreme heat
extreme heat
UK
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/aug/16/
heat-inequality-causing-thousands-of-unreported-deaths-in-poor-countries
https://www.theguardian.com/science/audio/2023/jul/20/
extreme-heat-what-does-it-do-to-us-
and-how-can-we-adapt-
podcast - Guardian podcast
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jul/18/
uk-weather-heatwave-cold-country-adapt-heat-climate
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/gallery/2022/jul/18/
extreme-heat-in-the-uk-in-pictures
https://www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2022/jul/19/
what-will-it-take-
for-the-uk-to-adapt-to-extreme-heat-
podcast - Guardian podcast
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/jul/07/
world-must-step-up-preparations-for-extreme-heat
grip USA
https://www.npr.org/2024/07/06/
nx-s1-5031553/extreme-heat-west-east-coast
inflict
USA
https://www.npr.org/2024/07/06/
nx-s1-5031553/extreme-heat-west-east-coast
heat islands
USA
Trees don't always
provide enough cooling
because heat gets
trapped in roofs, roads, and sidewalks
creating what's
called the urban heat island effect.
https://www.npr.org/2024/02/01/
1227692559/how-mapping-heat-islands-
can-help-cities-prepare-for-extreme-heat
adapt to extreme heat
UK
https://www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2022/jul/19/
what-will-it-take-for-the-uk-to-adapt-to-extreme-heat-
podcast - Guardian podcast
wave of extreme heat
USA
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/08/
us/heat-wave-older-people.html
USA > extreme heat
UK, USA
https://www.theguardian.com/news/gallery/2024/jul/08/
a-damaged-hospital-and-a-clogged-canal-photos-of-the-day-monday
https://www.npr.org/2024/07/08/
g-s1-8500/border-new-mexico-firefighters-migrants-heat-illness-
extreme-summer-temperatures
https://www.npr.org/2024/07/06/
nx-s1-5031553/extreme-heat-west-east-coast
https://www.npr.org/2024/02/01/
1227692559/how-mapping-heat-islands-
can-help-cities-prepare-for-extreme-heat
https://www.npr.org/2023/09/07/
1198269007/extreme-heat-is-cutting-into-recess-for-kids-
experts-say-thats-a-problem
https://www.npr.org/2023/08/24/
1195513645/planning-for-extreme-heat-climate
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/21/
opinion/climate-change-heat-waves.html
https://www.npr.org/2021/07/17/
1016415960/as-extreme-heat-kills-hundreds-
oregon-steps-up-push-to-protect-people
https://www.npr.org/2021/06/21/
1008857071/how-to-stay-safe-in-the-west-coasts-sweltering-heat-waves
https://www.npr.org/2021/07/14/
1015983700/extreme-heat-is-getting-worse-for-low-income-non-white-americans-
a-new-study-sho
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/07/12/
us/us-heat-wave
extreme heat danger
USA
https://www.npr.org/2021/06/21/
1008857071/how-to-stay-safe-in-the-west-coasts-sweltering-heat-waves
extreme heat wave
USA
https://www.npr.org/2021/06/15/
1006588868/doctors-warn-of-burns-from-asphalt-
as-a-record-breaking-heat-wave-envelopes-the-
record-breaking
heat-wave USA
https://www.npr.org/2021/06/15/
1006588868/doctors-warn-of-burns-from-asphalt-
as-a-record-breaking-heat-wave-envelopes-the-
heat apocalypse
USA
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/18/
heat-apocalypse-warning-western-france-thousands-flee-wildfire
hit 40 degrees Celsius — 104 Fahrenheit —
USA
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/19/
world/europe/europe-uk-heat-record-wildfires.html
scorch
https://www.reuters.com/pictures/
pictures-heatwave-scorches-pakistan-2024-05-28/
scorch
USA
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/30/
world/canada/canada-wildfires-river-salmon.html
https://www.npr.org/2018/07/05/
626057055/melting-roads-and-runny-roofs-
heat-scorches-the-northern-hemisphere
USA >
Death Valley scorches in 54.4C heat
UK
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/12/
health-warnings-as-death-valley-scorches-in-544c-heat
scorcher
USA
https://www.npr.org/2023/08/24/
1195513645/planning-for-extreme-heat-climate
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/01/20/
463709775/a-scorcher-2015-shatters-record-as-warmest-year-nasa-and-noaa-say
Phew. What a scorcher
enjoy scorching weather
UK
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/gallery/2009/jun/29/
weather-heatwave-uk
USA >
Death Valley scorches in 54.4C heat
UK
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/12/
health-warnings-as-death-valley-scorches-in-544c-heat
Karachi, Pakistan
44C UK
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/commentisfree/2021/jul/04/
in-karachi-hot-weather-is-normal-but-44c-feels-like-youre-going-to-die
USA > hit a scorching 130 degrees Fahrenheit
UK
https://www.npr.org/2020/08/17/
903192396/130-degrees-death-valley-sees-
what-could-be-record-heat
scorch
USA
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/21/
us/miami-heat-summer-weather.html
scorching temperatures
UK
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/gallery/2020/jun/24/
scorching-temperatures-hit-the-uk-in-pictures
scorching hot USA
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/20/
us/100-degree-weather.html
scorching heat
UK
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/jul/19/
earth-sends-a-warning-
how-the-papers-covered-the-uks-scorching-heat
scorching heat
USA
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/21/
us/miami-heat-summer-weather.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/31/
us/heat-migrant-deaths-texas-mexico.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/06/
us/california-heat-wave-energy-crisis.html
migrants > USA >
Texas > succumb to heat exhaustion
USA
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/31/
us/heat-migrant-deaths-texas-mexico.html
scorching heatwave
UK
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/gallery/2020/nov/29/
sydney-gripped-by-scorching-40c-heatwave-in-pictures
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2006/jul/23/
weather.theobserver
Australia > scorching 40C heat wave UK
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/gallery/2020/nov/29/
sydney-gripped-by-scorching-40c-heatwave-
in-pictures - Guardian picture gallery
stand the heat
USA
https://www.npr.org/2018/06/05/
615775543/cant-stand-the-heat-
tell-us-how-you-re-coping-with-rising-temperatures
urban heat
USA
https://www.npr.org/2019/09/04/
755349748/trees-are-key-to-fighting-urban-heat-
but-cities-keep-losing-them
searing heat
UK
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jul/18/
uk-weather-heatwave-boris-johnson-checked-out-airport-runways-closed
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/jul/25/
uk-railways-in-chaos-as-searing-heat-sparks-fear-of-derailed-trains
searing heat USA
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/21/
world/asia/record-heat-wave-flooding-climate-change.html
https://www.npr.org/2021/07/12/
1015212767/california-oregon-fire-wildfire-heat-record
insufferable heat
UK
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/05/
one-billion-people-will-live-in-insufferable-heat-within-50-years-
study
record heat
USA
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/30/
climate/record-heat-waves.html
heat record USA
https://www.npr.org/2023/09/10/
1198669796/phoenix-sets-another-heat-record
https://www.npr.org/2019/07/05/
738905306/it-was-a-balmy-90-degrees-yesterday-in-anchorage-
for-the-first-time-on-record
2023 > smash heat records
https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/
un-sounds-red-alert-world-smashes-heat-records-2023-2024-03-19/
Record-Setting Heat
Across the U.S. in 2012 USA
The average temperature
across the contiguous United States in 2012
was 55.3° (3.2° above normal).
This ranks as the warmest year
since records began in 1895.
https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/01/08/
science/earth/record-setting-heat-across-the-us-in-2012.html
record-breaking heat
UK
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jul/25/
uk-weather-nation-braces-for-record-breaking-heat-temperatures
record-breaking heat
USA
https://www.npr.org/2019/09/14/
760556291/alaska-villages-run-dry-
and-residents-worry-if-this-is-our-future-of-no-water
be under excessive heat warnings
USA
https://www.npr.org/2022/06/10/
1104235591/heat-wave-weekend-california-texas
broil USA
https://www.npr.org/2021/07/12/
1015212767/california-oregon-fire-wildfire-heat-record
burn
USA
https://www.npr.org/2021/07/12/
1015212767/california-oregon-fire-wildfire-heat-record
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/28/
opinion/climate-change-earth.html
heat up
≠ cool down
bask UK
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/gallery/2019/jul/23/
britains-hottest-day-of-the-year-in-pictures
high heat
USA
https://www.npr.org/2019/09/04/
757034136/how-high-heat-can-impact-mental-health
high temperatures
UK
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/gallery/2022/aug/10/
parched-london-dried-out-in-pictures - Guardian picture gallery
podcasts > before
2024
extreme heat USA
https://www.npr.org/2024/07/06/
nx-s1-5031553/extreme-heat-west-east-coast
https://www.npr.org/2021/06/21/
1008857071/how-to-stay-safe-in-the-west-coasts-sweltering-heat-waves
https://www.npr.org/2020/08/18/
903399662/extreme-heat-and-fire-tornadoes-slow-firefighting-efforts-in-california
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/08/06/
climate/climate-change-inequality-heat.html
https://www.npr.org/2020/02/06/
803130948/bumblebees-are-disappearing-because-of-extreme-heat
https://www.npr.org/2018/07/09/
624643780/phoenix-tries-to-reverse-its-silent-storm-of-heat-deaths
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/16/
sports/a-fine-line-between-summer-sizzle-and-too-darn-hot.html
heat inequality
UK
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/aug/16/
heat-inequality-causing-thousands-of-unreported-deaths-in-poor-countries
pollution > nitrogen dioxide
UK
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2006/jul/26/
weather.climatechange
USA >
shrivel
UK
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jul/13/
lake-powell-drought-electricity
scorch
https://www.reuters.com/pictures/
pictures-heatwave-scorches-pakistan-2024-05-28/
scorch
USA
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/30/
world/canada/canada-wildfires-river-salmon.html
https://www.npr.org/2018/07/05/
626057055/melting-roads-and-runny-roofs-
heat-scorches-the-northern-hemisphere
USA >
Death Valley scorches in 54.4C heat
UK
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/12/
health-warnings-as-death-valley-scorches-in-544c-heat
scorcher
USA
https://www.npr.org/2023/08/24/
1195513645/planning-for-extreme-heat-climate
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/01/20/
463709775/a-scorcher-2015-shatters-record-as-warmest-year-nasa-and-noaa-say
Phew. What a scorcher
enjoy scorching weather
UK
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/gallery/2009/jun/29/
weather-heatwave-uk
scorch
USA
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/21/
us/miami-heat-summer-weather.html
scorching temperatures
UK
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/gallery/2020/jun/24/
scorching-temperatures-hit-the-uk-in-pictures
scorching hot USA
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/20/
us/100-degree-weather.html
scorching heat
UK
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/jul/19/
earth-sends-a-warning-
how-the-papers-covered-the-uks-scorching-heat
scorching heat
USA
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/21/
us/miami-heat-summer-weather.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/31/
us/heat-migrant-deaths-texas-mexico.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/06/
us/california-heat-wave-energy-crisis.html
scorched
earth UK
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/apr/06/
adam-ferguson-outback-photos-australia-silent-wind-roaring-sky
migrants > USA >
Texas > succumb to heat exhaustion
USA
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/31/
us/heat-migrant-deaths-texas-mexico.html
scorching heatwave
UK
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/gallery/2020/nov/29/
sydney-gripped-by-scorching-40c-heatwave-in-pictures
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2006/jul/23/
weather.theobserver
USA >
Death Valley scorches in 54.4C heat
UK
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/12/
health-warnings-as-death-valley-scorches-in-544c-heat
USA > hit a scorching 130 degrees Fahrenheit
UK
https://www.npr.org/2020/08/17/
903192396/130-degrees-death-valley-sees-
what-could-be-record-heat
115
degrees USA
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/20/
us/100-degree-weather.html
top 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43.3 Celsius)
USA
https://www.npr.org/2023/09/10/
1198669796/phoenix-sets-another-heat-record
71 Degrees In
February:
Temperatures In
Boston And Buffalo
Rewrite Record Book
USA February 24, 2017
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/02/24/
517071106/71-degrees-in-february-
temperatures-in-boston-and-buffalo-rewrite-record-book
40C
UK
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2022/jul/19/
uk-weather-extreme-heatwave-forecast-temperature-today-latest-live
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jul/17/
uk-heatwave-how-to-keep-cool-and-stay-safe-in-40c
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/gallery/2020/nov/29/
sydney-gripped-by-scorching-40c-heatwave-
in-pictures - Guardian picture gallery
in 40C
UK
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jul/17/
uk-heatwave-how-to-keep-cool-and-stay-safe-in-40c
wilt
bout of intense summer heat
UK
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2006/jul/23/
weather.theobserver
summer sizzle
USA
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/16/sports/
a-fine-line-between-summer-sizzle-and-too-darn-hot.html
sizzle
UK
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2006/jul/23/
theobserver.uknews
broil and burn
under
triple-digit temperatures USA
https://www.npr.org/2021/07/12/
1015212767/california-oregon-fire-wildfire-heat-record
soar UK
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/may/06/
sunny-afternoon-temperatures-soar-across-britain
soaring temperatures
UK
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/24/
britain-heat-soaring-temperatures-architecture-green-space
soaring temperatures
blistering
UK
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2006/jun/30/
weather.climatechange
blistering heat USA
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/10/
us/west-heat-wave-death-valley.html
a blistering 92 degrees
USA
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/news/2006-07-17-
heat-wave_x.htm - broken link
on a blistering
summer day USA
http://www.npr.org/2017/08/17/
543723961/he-crossed-the-border-in-a-packed-unventilated-trailer-and-survived
Karachi, Pakistan
44C UK
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/commentisfree/2021/jul/04/
in-karachi-hot-weather-is-normal-but-44c-feels-like-youre-going-to-die
100º
UK
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2006/jul/23/
weather.theobserver
roasting
swelter
UK
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jul/18/
uk-weather-heatwave-boris-johnson-checked-out-airport-runways-closed
https://www.theguardian.com/news/gallery/2019/jun/26/
europeans-attempt-to-cope-with-record-heatwave-in-pictures
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/jul/07/
uk-hottest-day-year
sweltering (adjective)
USA
https://www.npr.org/2024/05/27/
1198912427/summer-2024-forecast-extreme-heat-hurricanes-wildfire
sweltering heat
USA
https://www.npr.org/2023/08/28/
1196071626/as-classes-resume-in-sweltering-heat-
many-schools-lack-air-conditioning
sweat
sweat
gasp
gasping
parching heat
parched
UK
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/gallery/2022/aug/10/
parched-london-dried-out-in-pictures
boiling
bake
UK
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/jun/30/uk-
heatwave-to-be-declared
bake USA
https://www.npr.org/2021/07/12/
1015212767/california-oregon-fire-wildfire-heat-record
https://www.npr.org/2019/09/03/
754044732/as-rising-heat-bakes-u-s-cities-the-poor-often-feel-it-most
baking UK
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/jul/21/
carefree-britain-weather-kevin-mckenna
baking
USA
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/06/21/
533789913/summers-just-begun-but-the-southwestern-u-s-is-already-baking
baking hot day
cook
cool
coof off
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/gallery/2013/jul/31/
kenyan-grandmothers-self-defence-pictures
fan
fan
extreme weather events
fire
tornadoes USA
https://www.npr.org/2020/08/18/
903399662/extreme-heat-and-fire-tornadoes-slow-firefighting-efforts-in-california
Corpus of news articles
Earth > Weather > Extreme heat
Environment
2014 Was Hottest Year on Record,
Surpassing 2010
JAN. 16, 2015
The New York Times
By JUSTIN GILLIS
Last year was the hottest in earth’s recorded history, scientists
reported on Friday, underscoring scientific warnings about the risks of runaway
emissions and undermining claims by climate-change contrarians that global
warming had somehow stopped.
Extreme heat blanketed Alaska and much of the western United States last year.
Several European countries set temperature records. And the ocean surface was
unusually warm virtually everywhere except around Antarctica, the scientists
said, providing the energy that fueled damaging Pacific storms.
In the annals of climatology, 2014 now surpasses 2010 as the warmest year in a
global temperature record that stretches back to 1880. The 10 warmest years on
record have all occurred since 1997, a reflection of the relentless planetary
warming that scientists say is a consequence of human emissions and poses
profound long-term risks to civilization and to the natural world.
Of the large inhabited land areas, only the eastern half of the United States
recorded below-average temperatures in 2014, a sort of mirror image of the
unusual heat in the West. Some experts think the stuck-in-place weather pattern
that produced those extremes in the United States is itself an indirect
consequence of the release of greenhouse gases, though that is not proven.
Several scientists said the most remarkable thing about the 2014 record was that
it occurred in a year that did not feature El Niño, a large-scale weather
pattern in which the ocean dumps an enormous amount of heat into the atmosphere.
Longstanding claims by climate-change skeptics that global warming has stopped,
seized on by politicians in Washington to justify inaction on emissions, depend
on a particular starting year: 1998, when an unusually powerful El Niño produced
the hottest year of the 20th century.
With the continued heating of the atmosphere and the surface of the ocean, 1998
is now being surpassed every four or five years, with 2014 being the first time
that has happened in a year featuring no real El Niño pattern. Gavin A. Schmidt,
head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in Manhattan, said the next
time a strong El Niño occurs, it is likely to blow away all temperature records.
“Obviously, a single year, even if it is a record, cannot tell us much about
climate trends,” said Stefan Rahmstorf, head of earth system analysis at the
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany. “However, the fact
that the warmest years on record are 2014, 2010 and 2005 clearly indicates that
global warming has not ‘stopped in 1998,’ as some like to falsely claim.”
Such claims are unlikely to go away, though. John R. Christy, an atmospheric
scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville who is known for his
skepticism about the seriousness of global warming, pointed out in an interview
that 2014 had surpassed the other record-warm years by only a few hundredths of
a degree, well within the error margin of global temperature measurements.
“Since the end of the 20th century, the temperature hasn’t done much,” Dr.
Christy said. “It’s on this kind of warmish plateau.”
NASA and the other American agency that maintains long-term temperature records,
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, issued separate data
compilations on Friday that confirmed the 2014 record. A Japanese agency had
released preliminary information in early January showing 2014 as the warmest
year.
The last scientific group that curates the world’s temperature record, in
Britain, is scheduled to report in the coming weeks.
“Why do we keep getting so many record-warm years?” Dr. Schmidt asked in an
interview. “It’s because the planet is warming. The basic issue is the long-term
trend, and it is not going away.”
February 1985 was the last time global temperatures fell below the 20th-century
average for a given month, meaning that no one younger than 30 has ever lived
through a below-average month.
The contiguous United States set its temperature record in 2012. But, mainly
because of the unusual chill in the East last year, 2014 was only the 34th
warmest year on record for the lower 48 states.
That cold was brought into the interior of the country by a loop in a current
called the jet stream that allowed Arctic air to spill southward. But an
offsetting kink allowed unusually warm tropical air to settle over the West,
large parts of Alaska and much of the Arctic.
A few recent scientific papers say that such long-lasting kinks in the jet
stream have become more likely because global warming is rapidly melting the sea
ice in the Arctic, disturbing longstanding weather patterns. But many leading
scientists are not convinced on that point.
Whatever the underlying cause, last year’s extreme warmth in the West meant that
Alaska, Arizona, California and Nevada all set temperature records. Some parts
of California had basically no winter last year, with temperatures sometimes
running 10 or 15 degrees above normal for the season.
Those conditions exacerbated the severe drought in California, which has been
alleviated only slightly by recent rains. Some small towns have run out of
water, the sort of impact that scientists fear will become commonplace as global
warming proceeds in the coming decades.
2014 Was Hottest Year on Record, Surpassing 2010,
NYT,
JAN 16, 2015
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/17/
science/earth/
2014-was-hottest-year-on-record-surpassing-2010.html
Not Even Close:
2012 Was Hottest Ever in U.S.
January 8, 2013
The New York Times
By JUSTIN GILLIS
The numbers are in: 2012, the year of a surreal March heat wave, a severe
drought in the Corn Belt and a huge storm that caused broad devastation in the
Middle Atlantic States, turns out to have been the hottest year ever recorded in
the contiguous United States.
How hot was it? The temperature differences between years are usually measured
in fractions of a degree, but last year’s 55.3 degree average demolished the
previous record, set in 1998, by a full degree Fahrenheit.
If that does not sound sufficiently impressive, consider that 34,008 daily high
records were set at weather stations across the country, compared with only
6,664 record lows, according to a count maintained by the Weather Channel
meteorologist Guy Walton, using federal temperature records.
That ratio, which was roughly in balance as recently as the 1970s, has been out
of whack for decades as the country has warmed, but never by as much as it was
last year.
“The heat was remarkable,” said Jake Crouch, a scientist with the National
Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C., which released the official climate
compilation on Tuesday. “It was prolonged. That we beat the record by one degree
is quite a big deal.”
Scientists said that natural variability almost certainly played a role in last
year’s extreme heat and drought. But many of them expressed doubt that such a
striking new record would have been set without the backdrop of global warming
caused by the human release of greenhouse gases. And they warned that 2012 was
probably a foretaste of things to come, as continuing warming makes heat
extremes more likely.
Even so, the last year’s record for the United States is not expected to
translate into a global temperature record when figures are released in the
coming weeks. The year featured a La Niña weather pattern, which tends to cool
the global climate over all, and scientists expect it to be the world’s eighth-
or ninth-warmest year on record.
Assuming that prediction holds up, it will mean that the 10 warmest years on
record all fell within the past 15 years, a measure of how much the planet has
warmed. Nobody who is under 28 has lived through a month of global temperatures
that fell below the 20th-century average, because the last such month was
February 1985.
Last year’s weather in the United States began with an unusually warm winter,
with relatively little snow across much of the country, followed by a March that
was so hot that trees burst into bloom and swimming pools opened early. The soil
dried out in the March heat, helping to set the stage for a drought that peaked
during the warmest July on record.
The drought engulfed 61 percent of the nation, killed corn and soybean crops and
sent prices spiraling. It was comparable to a severe drought in the 1950s, Mr.
Crouch said, but not quite as severe as the legendary Dust Bowl drought of the
1930s, which was exacerbated by poor farming practices that allowed topsoil to
blow away.
Extensive records covering the lower 48 states go back to 1895; Alaska and
Hawaii have shorter records and are generally not included in long-term climate
comparisons for that reason.
Mr. Crouch pointed out that until last year, the coldest year in the historical
record for the lower 48 states, 1917, was separated from the warmest year, 1998,
by only 4.2 degrees Fahrenheit. That is why the 2012 record, and its one degree
increase over 1998, strikes climatologists as so unusual.
“We’re taking quite a large step above what the period of record has shown for
the contiguous United States,” Mr. Crouch said.
In addition to being the nation’s warmest year, 2012 turned out to be the
second-worst on a measure called the Climate Extremes Index, surpassed only by
1998.
Experts are still counting, but so far 11 disasters in 2012 have exceeded a
threshold of $1 billion in damages, including several tornado outbreaks;
Hurricane Isaac, which hit the Gulf Coast in August, and, late in the year,
Hurricane Sandy, which caused damage likely to exceed $60 billion in nearly half
the states, primarily in the mid-Atlantic region.
Among those big disasters was one bearing a label many people had never heard
before: the derecho, a line of severe, fast-moving thunderstorms that struck
central and eastern parts of the country starting on June 29, killing more than
20 people, toppling trees and knocking out power for millions of households.
For people who escaped both the derecho and Hurricane Sandy relatively
unscathed, the year may be remembered most for the sheer breadth and
oppressiveness of the summer heat wave. By the calculations of the climatic data
center, a third of the nation’s population experienced 10 or more days of summer
temperatures exceeding 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
Among the cities that set temperature records in 2012 were Nashville; Athens,
Ga.; and Cairo, Ill., all of which hit 109 degrees on June 29; Greenville, S.C.,
which hit 107 degrees on July 1; and Lamar, Colo., which hit 112 degrees on June
27.
With the end of the growing season, coverage of the drought has waned, but the
drought itself has not. Mr. Crouch pointed out that at the beginning of January,
61 percent of the country was still in moderate to severe drought conditions. “I
foresee that it’s going to be a big story moving forward in 2013,” he said.
Not Even Close: 2012 Was Hottest Ever in U.S.,
NYT,
8.1.2013,
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/09/
science/earth/2012-was-hottest-year-ever-in-us.html
It Adds Up:
This Was New York’s
Hottest Summer
August 31, 2010
The New York Times
By PATRICK McGEEHAN
With one final, fitting blast of 96-degree heat on Tuesday, the summer of
2010 went down in the National Weather Service’s record books as the hottest
ever in New York City.
Hotter than the previous high of 77.3 degrees set in 1966, when more than 1,100
deaths were attributed to heat that repeatedly exceeded 100 degrees. Hotter than
2006, when a heat wave set off a blackout in northern Queens that left more than
100,000 residents without power for days.
But in this record-breaking season — defined by the Weather Service as June
through August — there was no cataclysm, no singular event that was likely to
define a three-month period when the temperature averaged 77.8 degrees. Instead,
the summer of 2010 might be more properly measured in more subtle ways.
For Sal Medina, a newsstand operator from the Bronx, it could be measured by the
number of frozen water bottles that he slipped into his pants this week to stay
cool (three).
For John Natuzzi, it could be all the ice cubes used during the first day of the
United States Open tennis tournament on Monday (80,000 pounds).
For lifeguards, it could be the number of total visitors to the city’s beaches
(17.2 million).
For executives at Consolidated Edison, it would surely be the number of
90-degree days the utility struggled through without any widespread disruptions
of its power network (34).
Tally it all up and the sum of the last three months is a rarely interrupted
stretch of hot days that forced New Yorkers to keep cool in ways both
traditional and creative.
Mr. Medina, 56, who lives in Pelham Bay, could barely stand to be inside his
metal-jacketed newsstand at Clinton and Delancey Streets on the Lower East Side
of Manhattan. To cool off, he devised a system using frozen pint-sized bottles
of Poland Spring water.
He would tuck three inside the waistband of his pants. A fourth he would sling
in a plastic bag whose handles he would knot just under his chin, holding the
icy cylinder against the back of his neck.
Even with that gear, Mr. Medina said he had quit early a few days this summer,
heading home at 3 p.m. on the hottest days, instead of the usual 6. The heat, he
said, “affects your whole nervous system, makes you grouchy; it makes you so you
can’t stand your customers.”
At Natuzzi Brothers Ice Company in Queens, the phones ring nonstop once the
temperature hits 90, Mr. Natuzzi said. This summer, he said, his company has
been supplying dry ice to ice-cream stores to keep their products frozen, a
request he said he rarely got last summer.
The shortage of orders during the cool early months of last summer led to
significant losses, Mr. Natuzzi said, but this summer has been a different
story. The company, whose warehouse holds 40 tons of ice, sold out its supply
during the heat wave that started on the July 4 weekend. It has been running its
delivery trucks up to 15 hours a day since then.
“It’s been quite a ride this summer,” Mr. Natuzzi said.
Exhausted as he is, it is not quite over. His company supplies ice to the
food-service operations at the United States Open, which runs for two weeks. On
the first day, the Open used about 20,000 pounds more than usual, he said. “I’ll
look back and say that this is one summer I’ll never forget,” Mr. Natuzzi said.
At Con Edison, the summer of 2010 will be memorable for what did and did not
happen. In the past three months, the utility’s customers drew more power off
its grid than during any previous three-month period, according to data compiled
by the company. But through successive heat waves, the electric distribution
system held up, with only occasional localized disruptions.
“For two days we suffered,” said Theo Trilivas, 65, a retired plumber who lost
power in his home in Astoria, Queens, in July. “No power. No cooking. No A.C. No
lights. Nothing. We had to throw out everything in the freezer.”
The growing demand for power from residential customers has been one of the
bigger surprises to Con Ed officials this summer. Of the company’s 36
distribution networks, 14 — all in residential areas — exceeded the forecast for
peak demand, said John F. Miksad, a senior vice president who oversees the
company’s electric operations. Reflecting the weak state of the economy, power
usage by commercial customers declined this summer, he said.
The increased use of air-conditioning has been one constant of life in the
metropolitan region. According to Con Ed’s estimates, 6.6 million
air-conditioners are in use in its service area, and that number is rising by at
least 170,000 a year.
Sam Sharma and his wife tried placing buckets of ice cubes on window sills and
in front of fans in their apartment on the second floor of a house in Woodside,
Queens. But eventually they broke down and did what so many other New Yorkers
have done: they bought an air-conditioner.
“We have it in the living room and only run it when it is extreme heat, and then
only for a few hours,” said Mr. Sharma, an immigrant from Nepal who works as a
parking lot attendant. “Maybe we used it 10 days this whole summer. It’s
expensive.”
In search of relief, some people actually sought out the city. On Monday, Sharon
Fredman, 38, a Web consultant from Tenafly, N.J., had run out of suburban
options to entertain her daughter, Margot, 8, and keep her cool at the same
time. So she drove in for the day to let Margot splash around in a sprinkler in
Tompkins Square Park. “When it’s 90 degrees,” Ms. Fredman said, “it’s equally
hot everywhere.”
When New Yorkers sought to escape the heat indoors, they flocked to the beaches,
particularly Coney Island. According to the city’s parks department, total
attendance at Coney Island’s beach slightly exceeded 12.8 million people, more
than triple the total from 2009.
“There were tremendous increases at all the beaches,” said Adrian Benepe, the
parks commissioner. “The beaches were our natural air-conditioners.”
Many of those beachgoers were repeat visitors, like Stephen Fybish, who said he
went to Coney Island or neighboring Brighton Beach to swim in the ocean 11 times
this summer. He said that he found the sand to be crowded some days but that he
always had ample room to swim.
A weather historian who has kept detailed records on temperatures in the city
for many years, Mr. Fybish was already looking ahead to September and
calculating what sort of weather it would take to extend the hottest-ever
distinction. By his reckoning, the average temperature for the month has to be
higher than 71 degrees for New York to have its hottest June-through-September
period on record.
C. J. Hughes and Rebecca White
contributed reporting.
It Adds Up: This Was New
York’s Hottest Summer,
NYT, 31.8.2010,
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/01/
nyregion/01summer.html
Storm
Long Past,
Darkness and Heat
Still Cling to Baton Rouge
September
9, 2008
The New York Times
By ADAM NOSSITER
BATON
ROUGE, La. — The fearsome heat of a South Louisiana summer, unmediated by
air-conditioning, reduces the strong to a primal struggle and sends the weak to
the hospital.
Thousands here are enduring it this way seven days after Hurricane Gustav.
Nearly 40 percent of the city’s electrical power remains out, and the principal
utility, Entergy, says it will be the last week of September before everyone’s
electricity here in the state capital is restored.
Whole neighborhoods are sweating it out, discovering things about the natural
setting, themselves and their neighbors they did not know and in some cases did
not particularly want to know. Front doors are open, generators are humming,
downed tree limbs are piled high, and the people are dripping.
Power blackouts have been widespread in South Louisiana in the last week. More
than 200,000 of Entergy’s customers in Louisiana were still without power
Monday, down from nearly 829,000 immediately after the storm.
“It’s sort of paralyzed the economy of the state,” said Foster Campbell, a
member of the Louisiana Public Service Commission.
Politicians are fuming, literally and figuratively. Several are vowing
investigations and promising a closer look at warding off the failures that are,
in Louisiana, as common as the violent summer storm.
This one, however, is a marathon. And it is particularly hard to swallow now
that New Orleans, the resented city downriver, has had its power restored, and
just downright unpleasant when the thermometer reads 95 and the humidity is
right there with it.
“I’m not coping; I’m just existing,” said Marilyn O’Brien, standing outside her
son’s house in Capital Heights, a pleasant district of 1920s houses under
towering trees, many of them now fractured by the storm. Ms. O’Brien looked
haggard. The yard was covered in downed power lines and chunks of tree trunk her
son had diligently sawed. He has no power, and neither does she.
“I don’t know how the Iraqis have done it,” she said. “Your energy’s zapped, and
you’re wet. My clothes feel like another layer of skin. And I’ve not slept in a
week.”
Down the street, the power failure sent 73-year-old Verien Flaherty to the
hospital with heat exhaustion and dehydration by the second day. Her little
house, she said stoically, had become “quite hot and smelly.” By Monday, though,
her son had procured a generator, and she was sitting in the darkened living
room.
Nearby were fleets of Entergy trucks, not working fast enough for most of the
people here. Entergy says the hurricane roared right up the path of its major
transmission lines, knocking out all 14 of them between here and New Orleans.
Some 8,000 poles went down too, all carrying above-ground wires. Giant steel
towers holding the lines were pushed to the ground like a child’s Erector set.
Alex Schott, a spokesman for Entergy, said the company was “restoring power at
record speeds.” The company’s lines suffered “a lot of damage,” Mr. Schott said,
and Baton Rouge was “where the brunt of it occurred.”
Even longtime critics of Entergy, a profit-making regional energy company that
is a monopoly or near-monopoly in many places and whose stock has steadily risen
over the last eight years, say burying the power lines may not be practical in a
place like South Louisiana, where water is rarely far from the surface.
But there could be other ways of protecting the power system from the strong
storms that regularly batter this coastal state. Senator Mary L. Landrieu,
Democrat of Louisiana, said Monday that she was working on legislation to give
the government a role in strengthening the transmission lines here, “so that
when disaster strikes, our communities will not be faced with needless and
endless power outages.”
Mr. Schott said Entergy might be interested in such strategies, “as long as
costs are recoverable” — in all likelihood, paid by the customers.
An aide to Ms. Landrieu spoke of encasing the lines in reinforced pipe, as is
done in Europe.
Mr. Campbell, the public service commissioner, said it was “totally unacceptable
for people to be out two, three weeks without electricity.” He made note of what
has become a particular irritant in light of the failures, the sky-high power
bills that are a feature of life here.
“There’s a great irony here: we have some of the poorest people in the country,
and some of the highest utility rates in the Southeastern U.S.” said Mr.
Campbell, who added that he was “not interested in giving Entergy any money for
this storm.”
In Capital Heights, the accent was on stoicism. “Our house is sweaty hot,” said
Kelly Nelson, a hospital physical therapist. “You go to sleep at 9 o’clock, you
wake up at 11 at night, hoping it’s time to go to work.”
Across the street, Keith Morris, an artist, was wet but smiling. “It’s O.K.,” he
said. “I’m 58 years old. I’ve lived in Louisiana and in Siberia, and it’s a hell
of a lot easier here than in Siberia.”
For others, the unwonted exposure to that basic element of Louisiana life made
them rethink a commitment that often demands so much. “I’ve lost my attachment
to something that hurts me,” Ms. O’Brien said.
“It has beaten me up, so I feel like divorcing it,” she said. “I would leave
Louisiana.”
Jeremy Alford contributed reporting.
Storm Long Past, Darkness and Heat Still Cling to Baton
Rouge,
NYT, 9.9.2008,
https://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/09/
us/09power.html
Scorching Heat
Blankets East Coast
June 10,
2008
The New York Times
By JOHN HOLUSHA
Scorching
heat and stifling humidity gripped much of the east coast on Monday, with the
National Weather Service issuing heat advisories as temperatures were expected
to exceed 100 degrees in many areas.
The heat wave was expected to last into Tuesday and prompted officials in
Philadelphia and Connecticut to send students in public and parochial schools
home early both days and cancel evening programs, The Associated Press reported.
The heat caused power failures that interrupted some subway service in New York.
New York’s Office of Emergency Management said it would open cooling centers for
people who do not have air conditioning, and other cities were making similar
arrangements. Officials urged relatives and neighbors to check in on elderly,
housebound people, who are most in danger during hot spells.
The hot weather extended from New England down through the Middle Atlantic
states into the Carolinas.
Weather officials said heat waves are not just uncomfortable, they are
dangerous. “Heat is the number one weather-related killer,” the weather service
said. “On average, more than 1,500 people in the U.S. die each year from
excessive heat.”
That is more than the deaths attributed to tornadoes, hurricanes, floods and
lightening combined, the agency said.
In New York City, service on the F and G lines in Brooklyn was disrupted during
Monday’s rush hour because Con Ed lines that power the subway systems signals
failed. Officials of New York City Transit said generators were being sent to
the affected areas so service could be resumed.
Paul Fleuranges, a spokesman for the transit system, said the problem was
relatively minor, but critical. “We have third-rail power. That hasn’t been
affected. So we can move trains, but without signals we can’t operate safely,
which is why we have to bring in generators.”
Sunday’s high temperature in Central Park was 93 degrees, just shy of the
95-degree record for the date.
Scorching Heat Blankets East Coast,
NYT,
10.6.2008,
https://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/10/
us/09cnd-weather.html
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