By Sharon Bernstein, Rachel Nostrand, Rich McKay
(Reuters) – Michael Shields has managed pools in the Phoenix area for years and spends enough time honing his strategies for surviving the scorching heat that hits the Arizona desert city each summer. rice field.
He usually wakes up at 4am, puts on a protective suit, drinks a lot of electrolyte drinks, and rubs sunscreen on his hands and face. Ready to face hell, he arrived at his first client’s home well before dawn. By then, the temperature was already in the mid-90s.
No wonder there are days here in the summer when mercury temperatures are well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius). But for the past two weeks, mercury has hit more than 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43 degrees Celsius) every afternoon, and the extreme temperatures could continue into next week, breaking Phoenix’s record of 18 straight days in 1974. forecasters say there is.
Temperatures are expected to hit 115 degrees Fahrenheit (46 degrees Celsius) on Saturday and 116 degrees Fahrenheit (47 degrees Celsius) on Sunday, according to the National Weather Service.
The heat wave has stopped many Phoenix residents, even veterans like Shields, who experienced the ordeal of the summer, but has avoided reporting about it, he said.
“I don’t look at the weather.
The Climate Check, a climate-focused real estate analytics group, reports that between 1985 and 2005, Phoenix had temperatures above 109 degrees Fahrenheit (43 degrees Celsius) about seven days a year. They estimate that by 2050, Phoenix residents are expected to exceed that temperature an average of 44 days a year.
The number of heatstroke deaths in Phoenix’s Maricopa County has been on the rise in recent years, rising from 338 in 2021 to 425 last year. As of 2023, there have been 12 deaths from heatstroke, with 55 still under investigation.
As the city’s heat wave unfolded, paramedics and government agencies focused on combating the city’s heat distributed bottled water to homeless people and encouraged them to take refuge in several public cooling stations.
David Hondura, head of the city’s heat management and mitigation department, said some cooling stations are extending their hours because the area isn’t as cold as usual at night.
The city has nearly doubled the number of volunteers handing out water, hats and sunscreen this summer, he said. The lack of shade trees makes the heat worse, so the city will offer subsidies to help people plant trees.
park closure
The nearby Piestewa and Camelback Mountain hiking trails are closed during the hottest hours of the day. Phoenix Parks and Recreation spokesperson Adam Waltz said the sun was blazing and heat was rising from the ground, causing temperatures to rise to 130 or 140 degrees Celsius (54 or 60 degrees Celsius) in unshaded sections of the trail. said it could be reached.
Waltz said most outdoor children’s sports have already ended due to the harsh summer, ending around June and resuming in September.
Phoenix residents tend to avoid the heat, he said, despite the trend toward more extreme hot days. They’re just used to dealing with it.
But the long-term warming trend, where nights don’t cool down and asphalt and concrete can store heat and push up temperatures themselves, is worrying.
“People outside of Phoenix take their breath away when they see 113 or 114,” Waltz said. “We usually evacuate around 118:00 or 119:00, but it is very hot and dangerous.”
Heat dome “stops” overhead
Zach Taylor, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland, said heatwaves are spreading across the United States from Oregon down the West Coast to the Southwest, including Texas, to Alabama. said it was unusual.
A dome-like mass of high-pressure air “perched” above the affected area, Taylor said, and could provide relief to 100 million people under extreme heat warnings and alerts. It is said to deflect rain and storm systems.
With the center of the air mass concentrated over the southwest, Phoenix is exposed to the worst conditions.
“It’s been moored there for days,” said Taylor. “This is not typical summer heat.”
Temperatures hit 115 degrees Fahrenheit (46 degrees Celsius) on Saturday and 116 degrees Fahrenheit (47 degrees Celsius) on Sunday, but temperatures are expected to exceed 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43 degrees Celsius) by next week, the weather bureau said. .
Las Vegas is expected to hit 115 degrees Fahrenheit on Saturday and 118 degrees Fahrenheit (47 degrees Celsius) on Sunday. Temperatures in Death Valley could reach 127 degrees Celsius (53 degrees Celsius) on Saturday and 130 degrees Celsius (54 degrees Celsius) on Sunday, the agency said.
On Friday, in a Mesa suburb of Phoenix, science intern Emily Lubert donned long sleeves, pants and hiking boots to collect soil samples for a project to study the disease known as Valley fever.
Based at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, her group typically leaves around 8 a.m. and arrives at Mesa about two and a half hours later. This week we started at 6am in hopes of surviving the heat. But by 8:30 am the temperature was already over 100 degrees (38 degrees Celsius).
It’s not just the heat from the sun that is harmful. Asphalt temperatures can reach 160 degrees F (71 degrees Celsius) in the summer, the Arizona Humane Society blogged.
Sidewalks and roads are so hot that dog walker Cooper Barton won’t let his animals out after 9am
“We don’t want their feet to burn,” he said.
(Reporting by Sharon Bernstein, Rachel Nostrand, Rich McKay; Writing by Sharon Bernstein; Editing by Aurora Ellis, Jonathan Ortiz)
