Extreme Weather in the United States: Las Vegas could hit 118, an all-time record.
Phoenix could hit near 120.
Death Valley could hit 130-132, the highest reliably measured temperature on Earth in modern records.
El Paso has logged a record 27 days in a row at or above 100 degrees. Phoenix is destined for a 15th consecutive day at or above 110, closing in on the record of 18 days.
And conservative Republicans still want to pretend there's no climate crisis or global warming happening on Earth.
Death Valley threatens temperature records but tourists keep comingNotoriously hot California national park could surpass modern record of 130F amid unrelenting heatwave
Temperatures in the famously sizzling Death Valley national park are predicted to equal or even break modern records this weekend – but that hasn’t stopped the tourists from showing up.
The US south-west is currently trapped under an unrelenting heatwave, with extreme temperatures forecast to climb even higher in the coming days. In the national park, the thermometer could climb past 130F (54.4C).
But that probably won’t deter some willing to brave the heat.
Daniel Jusehus snapped a photo earlier this week of a famed thermometer outside the aptly named Furnace Creek Visitor Center after challenging himself to a run in the sweltering heat.
“I was really noticing, you know, I didn’t feel so hot, but my body was working really hard to cool myself,” said Jusehus, an active runner who was visiting from Germany. His photo showed the thermometer reading at 120F (48.8C).
Most visitors at this time of year make it only a short distance to any site in the park – which bills itself as the lowest, hottest and driest place on Earth – before returning to the sanctuary of an air-conditioned vehicle.
Signs at hiking trails advise against venturing out after 10am, though nighttime temperatures are still expected to be over 90F. The hottest temperature ever recorded at Death Valley was 134F (56.6C) in July 1913, according to the park service, although measuring equipment was less precise a century ago and the modern record was set in 2021 when the park hit 130F.
Other parks have longstanding warnings for hikers. At Grand Canyon national park in Arizona, officials are cautioning people to stay off the trails for most of the day in the inner canyon, where temperatures can be 20 degrees hotter than the rim. In west Texas, Big Bend national park near the Rio Grande is expected to be at least 110F.
Preliminary information from the park service shows at least four people have died this year from heat-related causes across the 424 national park sites. That includes a 65-year-old man from San Diego who was found dead in his vehicle at Death Valley earlier this month, according to a news release.
More than 1.1 million people annually visit the desert park, which sits over a portion of the California-Nevada border west of Las Vegas. At 5,346 square miles (13,848 square kilometers), it is the largest national park in the Lower 48. About one-fifth of the visitors come in June, July and August.
Many are tempted to explore, even after the suggested cutoff times. Physical activity can make the heat even more unbearable and leave people feeling exhausted. Sunbaked rocks, sand and soil still radiate after sunset.
“It does feel like the sun has gone through your skin and is getting into your bones,” said park Ranger Nichole Andler.
Others mentioned feeling their eyes drying out from the hot wind sweeping through the valley.
“It’s very hot. I mean, especially when there’s a breeze, you would think that maybe that would give you some slight relief from the heat, but it just really does feel like an air blow dryer just going back in your face,” said Alessia Dempster, who was visiting from Edinburgh, Scotland.
Death Valley is a narrow, 282ft (86-meter) basin that is below sea level but situated among high, steep mountain ranges, according to the park service’s website. The bone-dry air and meager plant coverage allows sunlight to heat the desert surface. The rocks and the soil emit all that heat in turn, which then becomes trapped in the depths of the valley.
Multiple people died in the park in 2021, including from heatstroke, during a record summer. Last year, a 67-year-old man died while walking two miles from his car to a gas station during a heatwave. The temperature then was 123F.
The park’s brownish hills feature signage saying “heat kills” and other messaging, such as a Stovepipe Wells sign warning travelers of the “Savage Summer Sun”.
Still, there are several awe-inspiring sites that draw tourists. Badwater Basin, made up of salt flats, is considered the lowest point in all of North America. The eye-opening 600ft Ubehebe Crater dates back over 2,000 years. And Zabriskie Point is a prime sunrise viewing spot.
The park’s extremes have long drawn in those attracted to extremes. The annual Badwater Basin ultramarathon, held in early July, sees runners cross the valley floor at the height of summer.
Josh Miller, a visitor from Indianapolis who has been to 20 national parks so far, shared that sentiment.
“It’s hot, but the scenery is awesome,” he said.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jul/14/california-death-valley-visit-temperature-record'Hell on earth’: Phoenix’s extreme heatwave tests the limits of survivalResidents of Arizona’s capital are used to scorching heat, but the summer’s unyielding sizzle is making harder to live there
It’s Wednesday morning in Phoenix and even under thick clouds, the thermometer is hovering above 100F (37.7C).
Arizona’s capital city is nicknamed “Valley of the Sun”, and residents are used to scorching heat. But by day 12 of a vicious heatwave that’s sent temperatures soaring into triple digits, with little relief overnight, limits are being tested – and it’s only going to get hotter.
The city is on track to break a grim milestone. If the heatwave continues as predicted, Phoenix will have endured an 18-day stretch of temperatures above 110F (43.3C) by Tuesday.
“Phoenix has always been hot,” said Michelle Litwin, the city’s heat response program manager. But this is something else.
Litwin and her team are tasked with aiding the city’s most vulnerable during the city’s brutally hot months, a season that now stretches from April to September. On Wednesday, she and a crew of city workers and volunteers set up a booth at a sprawling homeless encampment to hand out cold water bottles, hygiene kits and other resources that, for those living on the streets, could potentially mean the difference between life and death.
“This is Arizona’s natural disaster,” Litwin said. “We might have flash floods but heat is our issue.”
The city was the first in the country to fund a dedicated heat department in 2021, which has launched dozens of programs with ambitious goals, including planting more trees, opening cooling centers and ensuring people across the region have working air-conditioning units.
Despite the work, the numbers of heat-related fatalities have swelled dramatically in recent years, culminating in a record 425 lives lost last year. The climate crisis is upping the stakes, with temperatures only expected to surge further in the coming years. Staying one step ahead has proved a difficult – and deadly – challenge.
More people are making Phoenix their home even as the risks rise and a growing population is putting strain on housing and water – two resources that help dull the strain of stifling heat – both resources in short supply.
Heat, a quiet killer and one of the world’s deadliest disasters, takes an unequal toll. Fifty-six percent of those who succumbed to the heat last year in Maricopa county, where Phoenix is located, were unhoused. Of the people who died indoors, all of them were living in homes and buildings that weren’t cooled. In 78% of cases, AC units were present but not functioning.
The county’s statistics also show the disparities run along racial lines. Only 6.8% of Maricopa’s population is Black, but 11% of heat-related fatalities were Black people. Indigenous people, who accounted for 8% of deaths, are only 2.9% of the population.
At the homeless encampment, a line is forming at a booth where Arizona State University nursing students have joined the city workers to distribute coolers full of water bottles, wet towels and information to the hundreds of tents sprawling along the streets just steps from the city center.
It’s early afternoon and the cloud cover has burned off, leaving sunlight to cook the sidewalks which can reach temperatures of 160F (71.1C). Shade is sparse and the stale air is stifling as nurses cart wagons of refillable water jugs through the tents, offering them to inhabitants. They run out quickly.
Michael Shaw, a 49-year-old encampment resident, rings a soaking towel over his head and neck, lamenting the weekend heat that lies ahead. He knows people who have already lost their lives to the extreme conditions and is concerned their numbers will grow. Before securing his own stash of water, he alerted the workers that a woman in a nearby tent had suffered a stroke and was in need of help.
“It is hell on earth,” Shaw said. “I am pretty tough but these last few days are everything I can handle.” Life on this block is filled with danger and violence and the lure of drugs to dull the pain is constant, only adding to the strain. “I have been robbed and mugged. But the heat,” he said, “– it’s the killer.”
The city has been ordered to clear this area, known as “The Zone,” and officials have asked for more time to ensure people living here are provided with somewhere to go. There are shelter spots available and city-run cooling centers offer a reprieve. But it’s unclear how many will get a bed inside at the end of the day; for now, at least, they will have access to essential hydration.
‘Effects of climate change are here’By the afternoon it is approaching 110F (43.3C). But Pomello Park on the other side of town, where trees sway over verdant lawns that line quiet cul-de-sacs, feels a world apart.
Greenery makes a big difference in how a person fares during extreme heat. Shade can make temperatures feel up to 30 degrees cooler, according to Lora Martens, the urban tree program manager for the city’s office of heat response and mitigation. She is leading the effort to spread the shade to more exposed areas of the city, but that isn’t as easy as it sounds.
“The parts of our city that need trees the most are the hardest places to plant them,” she said. Trees struggle to thrive in the hottest areas, especially when landscapes are encased in cement. The city is also having to balance the increasing need for shade with the decreasing availability of water. It had hoped to hit its goal of 25% canopy coverage, but the drought is making it harder. “We are reassessing that goal with a lighter water future,” Martens said.
Such realities have forced a difficult reckoning with what’s possible as global heating pushes Arizona into uncharted territory. “The effects of climate change are here,” she said. “We are having conversations no one has had before.”
For now, that means two starkly different realities for the residents of Phoenix.
As the sun sinks in the sky on Wednesday evening, some emerge from air-conditioned homes to walk their dogs, taking advantage of temperatures hovering just under 100F (37.7C).
“This is just our winter,” said Shawn Bohl, out with his wife Debbie after a day spent inside. Their dog Wally pulled impatiently on the leash as they explained that, like other parts of the country forced inside during the most frigid months, the heat is part of life in Phoenix. The weather doesn’t feel as extreme to them as it might seem to others.
Still, the city will not shut down during the sizzling summers. Trash has to be picked up. Construction continues through the midday heat.
For those who have to live or work outside, the weeks ahead will be grueling.
“Here we work the whole year,” says landscaper Crispin Allejah, as he wipes sweat from his face, “and you need work.” Tending to a patch of grass in a Whole Foods parking lot, Allejah is clad in a long-sleeve shirt to protect his skin from the sun, along with heavy jeans, kneepads and boots.
“You have to keep yourself moving,” he said. “If you stand in one place it is going to be too hot.” He also has learned not to drink too much water too fast. “You have to drink water but if you drink too much, sometimes you throw up.”
Amazon delivery driver Gabe Castle has developed strategies for surviving long, hot work days – particularly on Wednesday, when he was in the thick of Amazon prime day with a huge volume of packages to deliver.
In his van he’s packed a cooler with 15 ready-to-drink water bottles, six frozen water bottles and five Gatorades. He fills every other bottle with a packet of electrolyte mix. He stashes one of two small towels on ice – and switches them out between deliveries to drape over his head and neck.
“This is my AC,” he said, gesturing to the material around his shoulders as sweat and water darken his blue shirt.
He’s used to working in such conditions, but admits it’s getting harder. “You never really get acclimated to the sweltering heat,” he said. “But you get to the point where it’s easier to combat it.”
Castle is concerned about the future. Life in Phoenix has brought the climate crisis into sharper focus but he fears others aren’t heeding the call.
“We have to do what we can to make sure these things are dealt with in a timely fashion, but we are behind the 8 ball,” he said. He looked quickly at his clock – his break was over and it was time to go back to work.
“I really hope we can figure this out soon,” he said, as he walked back toward his van. “Before our planet just totally goes up in a fireball.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jul/14/phoenix-heatwave-summer-extreme-weather-arizona
