Deadly, record-breaking heatwave grips western US
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
The Death Valley in California, known as one of the hottest places on earth, recorded a temperature of 53 deg C.
PHOTO: AFP
Follow topic:
LOS ANGELES - A record-breaking heatwave continued to grip the western United States on July 9, smashing records and endangering lives with little relief in sight.
Approximately 162 million people – nearly half of the US population – are living in areas under active heat warnings, according to the National Weather Service.
It said in a post on X the “dangerous heat” was expected to remain in the western part of the country for the rest of the week before moving eastward over the weekend, warning “the persistent and record-breaking heat is extremely dangerous to those without access to cooling”.
Among places that saw records shattered was Las Vegas, Nevada, which recorded its all-time high temperature of 48.9 deg C on July 7.
In Texas, the White House declared a federal emergency after the storm Beryl had left some two million without power as of July 9 evening.
“The greatest concern right now is the power outages and extreme heat that is impacting Texans,” President Joe Biden said in a statement.
Meanwhile, the south-eastern United States and East Coast saw sweltering temperatures of their own, with heat advisories and excessive heat warnings in effect from Florida to Massachusetts.
The heat has been directly attributed to several deaths along the US West Coast.
In Death Valley, California, on July 6, a motorcyclist died of suspected heat exposure and another was hospitalised, according to National Park Service officials.
The area, known as one of the hottest places on earth, recorded a temperature of 53 deg C.
Further north, four men in the Portland, Oregon area have died since July 5 as a result of heat-related illnesses, according to local newspaper The Oregonian.
Records smashed
Though the Pacific north-west is known as being generally more temperate than the deserts in the US south-west, temperatures there remained elevated on July 9 after the Oregon capital Salem hit a daily record of 39.3 deg C over the weekend.
“This is a record-breaking heatwave,” Dr Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with the University of California, Los Angeles, said during an online news conference over the weekend.
Some people in California, he said, had seen “not only the hottest day they’ve ever experienced but also the hottest day that their parents or grandparents ever would have experienced”.
The high temperatures also contributed to extreme fire conditions in California, where thousands of acres burned in active wildfires up and down the state.
North-west of Santa Barbara, the Lake Fire burned nearly 110 sq km, prompting evacuations and road closures on July 9.
The heatwave comes in the aftermath of the earth’s hottest June ever recorded
Recurring heatwaves are a marker of climate change caused by humanity’s use of fossil fuels, according to scientists. AFP
