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Newsweek
29 minutes ago
- Climate
- Newsweek
Millions Told to Avoid Sun in 2 States: 'Deadliest Weather Phenomenon'
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. The National Weather Service (NWS) has issued extreme heat warnings for parts of Arizona between Saturday and Tuesday, along with areas of Southern California for Monday, and is urging millions of people in impacted regions to "avoid exposure to the sun" from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. local time. Why It Matters Between 2004 and 2018, an average of 702 people died in the United States each year due to excess heat, according to data from the National Center for Health Statistics, with the NWS reiterating this week that it is the "deadliest weather phenomenon in the USA." According to the NWS, an extreme heat warning means that a period of very hot temperatures, even by local standards, will occur. What To Know An NWS update released early on Saturday morning showed extreme heat warnings are in place for large sections of Arizona along with parts of Southern California. An extreme heat warning is in place for areas below 4,000 feet in Grand Canyon County between 10 a.m. MST on Saturday and 7 p.m. MST on Tuesday. "Day hikers on Bright Angel Trail should descend no farther than 11/2 miles from the upper trailhead. Between the hours of 10 AM and 4PM, hikers should be out of the canyon or at Havasupai Gardens or Bright Angel campgrounds, physical activity is discouraged," the NWS warning said. A separate NWS extreme heat warning has been applied to a swath of Arizona including the cities of Phoenix, Peoria, Chandler, Sun City West, Surprise, Liberty, Wittmann, Tempe, Sun Lakes, Avondale, Goodyear, Paradise Valley, Gilbert, Queen Creek, Beardsley, Cashion, Mesa and Circle City between 10 a.m. on Sunday and 8 p.m. on Tuesday. Those in Maricopa County can call 2-1-1 to access a free cooling center and transportation. On Monday from 10 a.m. until 8 p.m. local time, an extreme heat warning covers southwest Arizona and southeast California including Parker Valley, Central La Paz, Southeast Yuma County, Gila River Valley, Imperial County Southwest, Imperial County Southeast, Imperial County West, Palo Verde Valley and Chuckwalla Valley. In a separate extreme heat warning map, the NWS warned those in impacted areas to stay hydrated, avoid the sun between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m., make use of air conditioning and wear light and loosely fitted clothes. It added there is a "high risk of heat stress or illness for anyone without effective cooling and/or adequate hydration." The NWS also warned that 15 states should expect elevated ultraviolet (UV) radiation levels this weekend, increasing the risk of sunburn and eye damage. On Friday, millions of Americans were urged to stay indoors during peak daylight hours across parts of 14 states due to the heat. An air quality alert was also issued for the Phoenix metro area in Arizona. Stock photograph showing a person cooling off amid searing heat that was forecast to reach 115 degrees Fahrenheit on July 16, 2023, in Phoenix. Stock photograph showing a person cooling off amid searing heat that was forecast to reach 115 degrees Fahrenheit on July 16, 2023, in Phoenix. Brandon Bell/GETTY What People Are Saying The National Weather Service said in its warning: "Take extra precautions if you work or spend time outside. When possible, reschedule strenuous activities to early morning or evening. Know the signs and symptoms of heat exhaustion and heat stroke. Wear lightweight and loose-fitting clothing when possible and drink plenty of water." It added: "To reduce risk during outdoor work, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration recommends scheduling frequent rest breaks in shaded or air-conditioned environments. Anyone overcome by heat should be moved to a cool and shaded location. Heat stroke is an emergency! Call 911."
Yahoo
a day ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Meteor Fragments Hit the Southeast U.S. Here's What to Know
Aiken, South Carolina - June 26, 2025 Credit - Bryan Jennings Updyke The inner solar system is a lot calmer than it was 4 billion years ago, during what's known as the heavy bombardment period. Over the course of that violent stretch, which lasted about 500 million years, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, and the moon were regularly pounded by asteroids, meteors, and other cosmic ordnance, many of the objects as big as the six-mile-wide rock that wiped out the dinosaurs. Things have gotten a lot quieter since then, but that's not to say everything has gone entirely still. Earth still lives inside a shooting gallery, with thousands of objects—totaling about 48.5 tons per year, according to NASA—entering the atmosphere. Yesterday, one of those space boulders exploded in the skies over Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina at 11:51 a.m EDT, according to the National Weather Service (NWS). The brilliant flash, which was accompanied by a sonic boom that many mistook for an earthquake, resulted in hundreds of calls and posts to the American Meteor Society (AMS), NASA's recommended organization for reporting meteoric fireballs. In Henry County, Ga., one house was struck by debris that broke through the roof and landed inside the residence. There were no reported injuries. 'The Henry County Emergency Management Agency [EMA] passed along to us that a citizen reported that a 'rock' fell through their ceiling around the time of the reports of the 'earthquake,'' the NWS said in a Facebook post. 'Henry County EMA also reported that the object broke through the roof, then the ceiling, before cracking the laminate on the floor and stopping.' The possibility of something tumbling from the skies this week was not entirely unexpected. Yesterday's event occurred during the ongoing Bootid meteor shower, which happens once every 6.37 years, when Earth passes through the remnants of the tail of Comet 7P/Pons-Winnecke. The Bootid is just one of dozens of known showers the AMS lists on its website. Many of those events produce only a fine mist of meteor fragments, visible only at night in dark conditions away from city lights, and commonly called shooting stars. Yesterday's rock was of a decidedly greater caliber, one big enough to be classified as a bolide, a meteor with enough mass to cause a bright flash and a sonic boom as it slams into the atmosphere, but too small for most of it to reach the ground without being incinerated first. To qualify as a bolide, an incoming meteor must reach the brightness of Venus, which, like the moon, is often visible in the daytime sky. A few dozen bolides occur each year, according to NASA. The most explosive recent bolide event occurred over Chelyabinsk, Russia, on Feb. 15, 2013, when an object estimated to have measured about 65 ft., detonated in the atmosphere, injuring nearly 1,500 people and damaging 7,200 buildings. Modern history's biggest bolide also struck Russia, in the celebrated Tunguska event of 1908, when a 350-ft. meteor flattened 830 sq. mi. of forest land. Lesser meteoric fireworks are much, much more common than bolides. According to the AMS, several thousand small fireballs erupt in the atmosphere every day, but 'the vast majority of these,' the organization says, 'occur over the oceans and uninhabited regions, and a good many are masked by daylight.' Notwithstanding the Henry County house that got hit by the recent bolide, the odds of any one spot—or any one person—being struck by space debris are vanishingly small. Barely 5% of objects that enter the atmosphere survive the fires of entry and reach the surface. Roughly 70% of that surface is ocean and much of the rest is desert or other sparsely inhabited terrain. Finally, most of the meteorites that do strike the planet are, by the time of impact, micrometeorites—too small to do any damage at all. In all of known human history, in fact, there is only one person who is believed to have been killed by a meteorite—an Indian bus driver who was struck while walking on the campus of an engineering college in the state of Tamil Nadu on Feb. 6, 2016. That effectively puts your odds of meeting the same fate as one in the total number of human beings who have walked the Earth since the dawn of homo sapiens roughly 300,000 years ago. That's not to say there haven't been close calls. On May 1, 1860, a horse was killed by a meteorite strike in Concord, Ohio. In 1954, an Alabama woman—whose picture was published and story was told in the Dec. 13, 1954 issue of LIFE magazine—sustained severe bruising to her hand and side when a 10 lb. meteorite crashed through her roof while she lay napping on her sofa. Put yesterday's event in the category of lightning strikes or shark bites—theoretically possible, highly improbable, one more thing you can take off your worry list. Write to Jeffrey Kluger at
Time Magazine
a day ago
- Science
- Time Magazine
Meteor Fragments Hit the Southeast U.S. Here's What to Know
The inner solar system is a lot calmer than it was 4 billion years ago, during what's known as the heavy bombardment period. Over the course of that violent stretch, which lasted about 500 million years, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, and the moon were regularly pounded by asteroids, meteors, and other cosmic ordnance, many of the objects as big as the six-mile-wide rock that wiped out the dinosaurs. Things have gotten a lot quieter since then, but that's not to say everything has gone entirely still. Earth still lives inside a shooting gallery, with thousands of objects—totaling about 48.5 tons per year, according to NASA—entering the atmosphere. Yesterday, one of those space boulders exploded in the skies over Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina at 11:51 a.m EDT, according to the National Weather Service (NWS). The brilliant flash, which was accompanied by a sonic boom that many mistook for an earthquake, resulted in hundreds of calls and posts to the American Meteor Society (AMS), NASA's recommended organization for reporting meteoric fireballs. In Henry County, Ga., one house was struck by debris that broke through the roof and landed inside the residence. There were no reported injuries. 'The Henry County Emergency Management Agency [EMA] passed along to us that a citizen reported that a 'rock' fell through their ceiling around the time of the reports of the 'earthquake,'' the NWS said in a Facebook post. 'Henry County EMA also reported that the object broke through the roof, then the ceiling, before cracking the laminate on the floor and stopping.' The possibility of something tumbling from the skies this week was not entirely unexpected. Yesterday's event occurred during the ongoing Bootid meteor shower, which happens once every 6.37 years, when Earth passes through the remnants of the tail of Comet 7P/Pons-Winnecke. The Bootid is just one of dozens of known showers the AMS lists on its website. Many of those events produce only a fine mist of meteor fragments, visible only at night in dark conditions away from city lights, and commonly called shooting stars. Yesterday's rock was of a decidedly greater caliber, one big enough to be classified as a bolide, a meteor with enough mass to cause a bright flash and a sonic boom as it slams into the atmosphere, but too small for most of it to reach the ground without being incinerated first. To qualify as a bolide, an incoming meteor must reach the brightness of Venus, which, like the moon, is often visible in the daytime sky. A few dozen bolides occur each year, according to NASA. The most explosive recent bolide event occurred over Chelyabinsk, Russia, on Feb. 15, 2013, when an object estimated to have measured about 65 ft., detonated in the atmosphere, injuring nearly 1,500 people and damaging 7,200 buildings. Modern history's biggest bolide also struck Russia, in the celebrated Tunguska event of 1908, when a 350-ft. meteor flattened 830 sq. mi. of forest land. Lesser meteoric fireworks are much, much more common than bolides. According to the AMS, several thousand small fireballs erupt in the atmosphere every day, but 'the vast majority of these,' the organization says, 'occur over the oceans and uninhabited regions, and a good many are masked by daylight.' Notwithstanding the Henry County house that got hit by the recent bolide, the odds of any one spot—or any one person—being struck by space debris are vanishingly small. Barely 5% of objects that enter the atmosphere survive the fires of entry and reach the surface. Roughly 70% of that surface is ocean and much of the rest is desert or other sparsely inhabited terrain. Finally, most of the meteorites that do strike the planet are, by the time of impact, micrometeorites—too small to do any damage at all. In all of known human history, in fact, there is only one person who is believed to have been killed by a meteorite—an Indian bus driver who was struck while walking on the campus of an engineering college in the state of Tamil Nadu on Feb. 6, 2016. That effectively puts your odds of meeting the same fate as one in the total number of human beings who have walked the Earth since the dawn of homo sapiens roughly 300,000 years ago. That's not to say there haven't been close calls. On May 1, 1860, a horse was killed by a meteorite strike in Concord, Ohio. In 1954, an Alabama woman—whose picture was published and story was told in the Dec. 13, 1954 issue of LIFE magazine—sustained severe bruising to her hand and side when a 10 lb. meteorite crashed through her roof while she lay napping on her sofa. Put yesterday's event in the category of lightning strikes or shark bites—theoretically possible, highly improbable, one more thing you can take off your worry list.
Newsweek
a day ago
- Climate
- Newsweek
Millions of Americans Told To Avoid Outdoor Activity In 14 States
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Millions of Americans were urged to stay indoors Friday as hot and humid conditions were expected to blanket large portions of the U.S. The National Weather Service (NWS) issued heat advisories across some 13 states, while an extreme heat warning was in effect for southern Arizona. Why It Matters The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says extreme heat can trigger heat-related illnesses, particularly among seniors, small children, and people with chronic health issues. Warning signs include muscle cramps, profuse sweating, lightheadedness, and nausea. The agency reports that over 700 people in the U.S. die from extreme heat each year. Hotter conditions can also increase ground-level ozone, compounding health concerns. A man cools off at a fire hydrant in the Hamilton Heights area in the Manhattan borough of New York City on June 25, 2025. A man cools off at a fire hydrant in the Hamilton Heights area in the Manhattan borough of New York City on June 25, 2025. Charly Triballeau/AFP via Getty Images What To Know The widespread warnings covered a significant swath of the country, with heat advisories in effect for parts of the following states: Alabama Arkansas Illinois Indiana Kentucky Mississippi Missouri North Carolina Ohio Pennsylvania Tennessee Virginia West Virginia Portions of southeast Ohio, and central, northern, southern, and western West Virginia were expected to see heat index values up to 101 degrees Fahrenheit. Heat index values reflect how hot it feels to the human body when both humidity and air temperature are taken into account. Peak index values up to near 105 were possible for southern Illinois, southwest Indiana, western Kentucky, and southeast Missouri, according to the NWS. Parts of Tennessee and Alabama faced conditions as high as 107 degrees, while central, eastern, north central, and southeast Arkansas could see heat index values up to 109, the agency said. "Drink plenty of fluids, stay in an air-conditioned room, stay out of the sun, and check up on relatives and neighbors," the NWS advised. Meanwhile, Arizona residents in counties including Pima and Pinal are being warned of "dangerously hot conditions" next week. The Tucson office of the NWS said the heat risk increases significantly during such events, urging people to plan activities during cooler parts of the day and remain hydrated. What People Are Saying NWS Phoenix, Arizona said on X, Thursday: "The warmup continues through the rest of the week and into the weekend as temps reach back towards near and above normal levels. A few spots will get close to 110°F as early as tomorrow, with 110°F-115°F forecasted for most of the lower deserts by next Monday." NWS Little Rock, Arkansas said on X, Friday: "Another hot day is expected. Scattered afternoon/early evening showers & storms could cool temps down. Best chances for rainfall today will be over northwest half of the state. Better rain chances for the remainder of the state will come over the weekend into next week." What Happens Next At the time of writing, the latest heat advisories were in effect until Friday evening. Meanwhile, the extreme heat warning for Arizona was in effect for Monday morning through Monday evening.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Climate
- Yahoo
Fireball sightings reported across the southeastern US
Fireball sightings were reported in multiple states across the southeastern United States during the day on Thursday. The American Meteor Society said it received over 140 reports of fireball sightings Thursday over six states -- Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. In northern Georgia, there were "numerous reports" of an earthquake followed by a flash across the sky, according to the National Weather Service in Peachtree City. A citizen in Henry County reported a "rock" went through their ceiling around that time, the office said while sharing photos of the damage on social media. "It appears that either a meteor or space junk crossed the skies of north Georgia just before 12:30 PM," the NWS in Peachtree City said. "That earthquake you felt was the result of the sonic boom from the meteor or space junk." MORE: Daylight fireball meteor may have rattled parts of New York City and New Jersey, NASA says The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) told ABC News it found multiple bright flashes of light during the day on Thursday via its lightning flash tracker. One of the flashes was captured between 12:21 p.m. and 12:26 p.m. ET, south of Atlanta. Multiple videos from home security and dashcam footage in South Carolina, verified by ABC News, captured a fireball streaking across the sky around that time. The NOAA's Satellite and Information Service shared a "quick flash" captured around the Virginia-North Carolina border on Thursday. NOAA's lightning mapper can sometimes detect bright meteors -- or bolides -- when they pass through the atmosphere, the office said. Following "many reports" of a fireball across the Southeast, the National Weather Service in Charleston, South Carolina, also said "satellite-based lightning detection shows a streak within cloud free sky" near the Virginia-North Carolina border Thursday. This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
