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Yahoo
18 hours ago
- Climate
- Yahoo
For Eastern US, temperatures swing high, then swing low. They'll soon go back up
After days of blistering heat, the nation's sweaty East Coast got to open windows, step outside and get temporary relief on Friday as temperatures plummeted as much as 40 degrees and humidity dropped alongside. At least 68 record highs were set and more than 20 places logged triple-digit heat from Sunday through Wednesday before a cold front from the north broke a heat dome's grip on the region Friday. Boston, which hit a record 102 Fahrenheit (about 39 Celsius) on Tuesday, was at 61 (about 16 Celsius) on Friday. That blast of cool comfort brought temperatures as much as 10 to 15 degrees below normal but didn't come close to breaking cold records, said Frank Pereira, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service's Weather Prediction Center. About the only place that could break a cool record of any kind Friday is one tiny station in Philadelphia, at the Franklin Institute, where the lowest recorded high for the day is 75 (about 24 Celsius). It was expected to get up to only about 72 (about 22 Celsius), Pereira said. But records don't go back very far at that site and meteorologists in Philadelphia don't consider it representative of the area, which is unlikely to get a record for cool, said meteorologist Ray Martin in the local weather forecast office in Mount Holly, New Jersey. That's what's so telling about this weather whiplash from hot to cool — and soon to go back to hot — said Climate Central chief meteorologist Bernadette Woods Placky. 'We've had so many record highs, not only our daytime maximum temperatures, but our overnight low temperatures throughout a widespread region of the country, so this massive shift feels great and it's giving everyone a break, which is nice,' Woods Placky said. 'But it's not necessarily coming with record lows on the other side.' That's a signature of human-caused climate change from the burning of fossil fuels, she said: 'We're getting so many record highs any more that it doesn't feel like it's big news because it's happening so often. But we just don't get as many record lows as frequently.' Climate Central's record tracker shows 68 high temperature marks set since Sunday and only three low ones: Billings, Montana; Casper, Wyoming; and Jackson, Idaho — all recorded on Sunday. For the first five months of this year, there have been nearly twice as many daily high records — 14,863 — set in the United States as low records — 7,855 — according to records compiled by meteorologist Guy Walton, who tracks NWS records. For the 2020s as a whole it's well over double with 221,971 daily high records set and 93,429 daily low records set. Except for the Dust Bowl era — which the ratio of highs to lows still don't come close to doubling — the number of record daily highs and lows were within 20% of each other from the 1920s to the 1980s, but since then the ratio of record heat to record cold has taken off. This Eastern cooling won't last, the weather service's Pereira said. Soon the heat will be back and temperatures in the East will once again be above normal, even for summer. But, he said, 'We're not looking at temperatures that are as oppressive as they were earlier in the week.' Weather whiplash from one extreme to another is often a sign of human-caused climate change because the jet stream — the river of air high above us that moves weather systems along generally from west to east — is weakening, getting wavier and getting stuck more because of global warming, Woods Placky and other scientists said. When that happens, it means more extremes such as a heat wave or a drought or downpours. And then when the stuck jet stream moves on, it sometimes results in opposite extreme weather. ___ Isabella O'Malley contributed from Philadelphia. ___ The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at Seth Borenstein, The Associated Press
Hamilton Spectator
18 hours ago
- Climate
- Hamilton Spectator
For Eastern US, temperatures swing high, then swing low. They'll soon go back up
After days of blistering heat, the nation's sweaty East Coast got to open windows, step outside and get temporary relief on Friday as temperatures plummeted as much as 40 degrees and humidity dropped alongside. At least 68 record highs were set and more than 20 places logged triple-digit heat from Sunday through Wednesday before a cold front from the north broke a heat dome's grip on the region Friday. Boston, which hit a record 102 Fahrenheit (about 39 Celsius) on Tuesday, was at 61 (about 16 Celsius) on Friday. That blast of cool comfort brought temperatures as much as 10 to 15 degrees below normal but didn't come close to breaking cold records, said Frank Pereira, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service's Weather Prediction Center. About the only place that could break a cool record of any kind Friday is one tiny station in Philadelphia, at the Franklin Institute, where the lowest recorded high for the day is 75 (about 24 Celsius). It was expected to get up to only about 72 (about 22 Celsius), Pereira said. But records don't go back very far at that site and meteorologists in Philadelphia don't consider it representative of the area, which is unlikely to get a record for cool, said meteorologist Ray Martin in the local weather forecast office in Mount Holly, New Jersey. That's what's so telling about this weather whiplash from hot to cool — and soon to go back to hot — said Climate Central chief meteorologist Bernadette Woods Placky. 'We've had so many record highs, not only our daytime maximum temperatures, but our overnight low temperatures throughout a widespread region of the country, so this massive shift feels great and it's giving everyone a break, which is nice,' Woods Placky said. 'But it's not necessarily coming with record lows on the other side.' That's a signature of human-caused climate change from the burning of fossil fuels, she said: 'We're getting so many record highs any more that it doesn't feel like it's big news because it's happening so often. But we just don't get as many record lows as frequently.' Climate Central's record tracker shows 68 high temperature marks set since Sunday and only three low ones: Billings, Montana; Casper, Wyoming; and Jackson, Idaho — all recorded on Sunday. For the first five months of this year, there have been nearly twice as many daily high records — 14,863 — set in the United States as low records — 7,855 — according to records compiled by meteorologist Guy Walton, who tracks NWS records. For the 2020s as a whole it's well over double with 221,971 daily high records set and 93,429 daily low records set. Except for the Dust Bowl era — which the ratio of highs to lows still don't come close to doubling — the number of record daily highs and lows were within 20% of each other from the 1920s to the 1980s, but since then the ratio of record heat to record cold has taken off. This Eastern cooling won't last, the weather service's Pereira said. Soon the heat will be back and temperatures in the East will once again be above normal, even for summer. But, he said, 'We're not looking at temperatures that are as oppressive as they were earlier in the week.' Weather whiplash from one extreme to another is often a sign of human-caused climate change because the jet stream — the river of air high above us that moves weather systems along generally from west to east — is weakening, getting wavier and getting stuck more because of global warming, Woods Placky and other scientists said. When that happens, it means more extremes such as a heat wave or a drought or downpours. And then when the stuck jet stream moves on, it sometimes results in opposite extreme weather. ___ Isabella O'Malley contributed from Philadelphia. ___ The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at .
Winnipeg Free Press
19 hours ago
- Climate
- Winnipeg Free Press
For Eastern US, temperatures swing high, then swing low. They'll soon go back up
After days of blistering heat, the nation's sweaty East Coast got to open windows, step outside and get temporary relief on Friday as temperatures plummeted as much as 40 degrees and humidity dropped alongside. At least 68 record highs were set and more than 20 places logged triple-digit heat from Sunday through Wednesday before a cold front from the north broke a heat dome's grip on the region Friday. Boston, which hit a record 102 Fahrenheit (about 39 Celsius) on Tuesday, was at 61 (about 16 Celsius) on Friday. That blast of cool comfort brought temperatures as much as 10 to 15 degrees below normal but didn't come close to breaking cold records, said Frank Pereira, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service's Weather Prediction Center. About the only place that could break a cool record of any kind Friday is one tiny station in Philadelphia, at the Franklin Institute, where the lowest recorded high for the day is 75 (about 24 Celsius). It was expected to get up to only about 72 (about 22 Celsius), Pereira said. But records don't go back very far at that site and meteorologists in Philadelphia don't consider it representative of the area, which is unlikely to get a record for cool, said meteorologist Ray Martin in the local weather forecast office in Mount Holly, New Jersey. That's what's so telling about this weather whiplash from hot to cool — and soon to go back to hot — said Climate Central chief meteorologist Bernadette Woods Placky. 'We've had so many record highs, not only our daytime maximum temperatures, but our overnight low temperatures throughout a widespread region of the country, so this massive shift feels great and it's giving everyone a break, which is nice,' Woods Placky said. 'But it's not necessarily coming with record lows on the other side.' That's a signature of human-caused climate change from the burning of fossil fuels, she said: 'We're getting so many record highs any more that it doesn't feel like it's big news because it's happening so often. But we just don't get as many record lows as frequently.' Climate Central's record tracker shows 68 high temperature marks set since Sunday and only three low ones: Billings, Montana; Casper, Wyoming; and Jackson, Idaho — all recorded on Sunday. For the first five months of this year, there have been nearly twice as many daily high records — 14,863 — set in the United States as low records — 7,855 — according to records compiled by meteorologist Guy Walton, who tracks NWS records. For the 2020s as a whole it's well over double with 221,971 daily high records set and 93,429 daily low records set. Except for the Dust Bowl era — which the ratio of highs to lows still don't come close to doubling — the number of record daily highs and lows were within 20% of each other from the 1920s to the 1980s, but since then the ratio of record heat to record cold has taken off. This Eastern cooling won't last, the weather service's Pereira said. Soon the heat will be back and temperatures in the East will once again be above normal, even for summer. But, he said, 'We're not looking at temperatures that are as oppressive as they were earlier in the week.' Weather whiplash from one extreme to another is often a sign of human-caused climate change because the jet stream — the river of air high above us that moves weather systems along generally from west to east — is weakening, getting wavier and getting stuck more because of global warming, Woods Placky and other scientists said. Wednesdays Columnist Jen Zoratti looks at what's next in arts, life and pop culture. When that happens, it means more extremes such as a heat wave or a drought or downpours. And then when the stuck jet stream moves on, it sometimes results in opposite extreme weather. ___ Isabella O'Malley contributed from Philadelphia. ___ The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at
Gulf Today
2 days ago
- Climate
- Gulf Today
This heat wave is just a taste of what's to come
Mark Gongloff, Tribune News Service Weather isn't climate, and a heat wave isn't proof of human-induced global warming any more than a snowball disproves it. At the same time, nothing quite focuses the mind on the causes and effects of a hotter planet than Mother Nature covering half of the United States with a giant pot lid, turning up the burner and letting it boil for a while. Thanks to a massive heat dome squatting on North America for most of the week, nearly 150 million Americans in 28 states were under some level of heat advisory from the National Weather Service as of Monday morning. More than 91 million people from Iowa to New York City face the highest level of alert, 'extreme heat,' with heat indexes in the triple digits, through at least Wednesday. Of course, there have always been heat waves. Summer is hot, as the climate-change deniers in my inbox reliably remind me. But an increasingly chaotic climate makes heat waves more likely and intense. The heat dome gripping the US this week is partly due to a mundane weather phenomenon — stalled high pressure — but it was made up to five times more likely by the fact that the atmosphere is simply hotter, according to the nonprofit research group Climate Central. It's only been a year since the 'heat blob' that tormented 150 million Americans. Earlier this month, Alaska experienced its first-ever heat advisory. And if these are the summer scorchers we can expect when the world has only warmed, say, 1.3 degrees Celsius above preindustrial averages, then just imagine what they'll be like if and when we reach 3C of heating, the course we're currently on. Merely hitting 2C would turn '1,000-year' heat waves like the one that hit the Pacific Northwest four years ago into events that happen once every five to 10 years, the nonprofit research group World Weather Attribution has estimated. 'One of easiest ways to see climate change's impact is in how it's increasing the chance these types of heat waves will occur,' Climate Central climate scientist Zachary Labe told me. 'By the middle of this century, these types of heat waves will be normal. The extremes will be even higher.' Most alarming to Labe and other scientists is the rise in the number of nights when the temperature fails to cool enough to give overheated human bodies, buildings and infrastructure any relief — a misery many parts of the country will experience firsthand this week. Here again, climate change's influence is strong. Between 1970 and 2023, average summer minimum temperatures rose by 3 degrees Fahrenheit, on average, in 230 US locations studied by Climate Central. Temperatures that stay so high for so long impose heavy costs on human health and prosperity. Deaths, illnesses and emergency-room visits surge. Nearly 22,000 people died from heat between 1999 and 2023, according to a study last year in the journal of the American Medical Association, with the death rate spiking since 2016, reversing years of relative stability. Heat takes more lives every year than any other weather-related disaster. And keep in mind official tallies of heat deaths are always undercounting. Heat worsens heart disease and other deadly ailments without leaving traces, meaning it often escapes mention on death certificates. Extreme heat that lasts all night also strains power supplies as people blast air-conditioners and fans around the clock. The nation's biggest power utility, PJM Interconnection LLC, which serves 65 million people across a swath of the eastern U.S., has warned this heat wave could push energy demand to its highest levels since at least July 2013. That will keep boosting prices for already expensive electricity. It also increases the risk of brownouts and blackouts, compounding the danger. A heat wave coupled with power failures after Hurricane Beryl last year left Houston-area ERs packed with patients in a grim echo of the early days of the Covid pandemic. Overheated people, streets, train lines and power grids impose economic costs beyond medical bills and lost lives. Extreme heat gouged US productivity by $100 billion in 2020, according to the 'purposely conservative' estimate of the Atlantic Council's Climate Resilience Center, a toll expected to rise to $500 billion per year by 2050. If we were taking this issue seriously, we would stop burning fossil fuels as quickly as possible, curbing the emissions of greenhouse gases cooking the atmosphere. Meanwhile, we would help states, towns, power suppliers and businesses better prepare for heat waves by planting green spaces, opening cooling centers, hardening infrastructure, conserving energy and checking on vulnerable people to make sure they're safe. In that fantasy world, the federal government might even declare these events natural disasters, because that's what they are, making dollars available for relief and preparation. Maybe we could even give them memorable names — Heat Wave Exxon, say. We would pump money into climate science to help predict them further in advance, giving us more time to save lives. In our current harsh reality, the climate-change deniers running the US government are doing none of the above. In fact, as part of his whole-of-government attack on climate action, President Donald Trump is doing everything in his power to make heat waves more brutal and costly: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Heat Strategy, launched just last year to prepare for heat events, has shut down. Most members of an interagency working group on extreme heat have quit. Layoffs at the National Weather Service, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Health and Human Services and other agencies have made emergency response and preparation more difficult. Federal money for local resilience and climate studies is frozen. And that's just a sampling; a report Monday from the Federation of American Scientists has the whole depressing list of the ways the U.S. is deeply unprepared for this and future heat waves, if you have time and the stomach to read it. Some state and local governments are taking heroic steps to protect their citizens, but stretched budgets only go so far. As hot as this summer will be, it's also one of the coolest we will ever enjoy again. Just how much hotter and more destructive future summers will become is still in our control.
Axios
2 days ago
- Climate
- Axios
Houston's summer evenings are getting warmer
Summer evenings are getting warmer in Houston and across much of the U.S. amid climate change, a new analysis shows. Why it matters: Higher overnight temperatures can have health consequences for vulnerable groups, as well as increased demand for air conditioning. That, in turn, can increase energy demand and strain electrical grids, fueling a vicious cycle with more greenhouse gas emissions. Driving the news: Average summer nighttime temperatures increased between 1970 and 2024 in 96% of 241 locations analyzed in a new report from Climate Central, a research and communications group. Among cities with an increase, temperatures rose by 3.1 degrees on average. Zoom in: Houston's overnight lows rose 5.8 degrees in that timeframe, according to the report. Dallas' rose 5 degrees, Austin rose 3.1 degrees and San Antonio rose 3 degrees. Between the lines: Hundreds of U.S. cities are experiencing more frequent warmer-than-average summer nights "with a strong climate change fingerprint," Climate Central says. That's based on the group's "Climate Shift Index" — a method of measuring climate change's impact on local daily temperatures — and the 1991-2020 climate normals.
