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posted by Fnord666 on Thursday July 18 2019, @09:23AM   Printer-friendly
from the scorching-news dept.

Heat Wave to Hit Two-Thirds of the U.S. Here’s What to Expect.

Dangerously hot temperatures are expected to spread across the Central and Eastern United States on Wednesday through the weekend, with temperatures soaring above 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the hardest-hit places, the National Weather Service has warned.

And even when the sun dips below the horizon, temperatures in many places are expected to remain in the 80s.

The hottest part of the country? Smack dab in the middle.

Everyone living in the region stretching from northern Oklahoma and central Nebraska through Iowa, Missouri and western Illinois should brace for a “prolonged period of dangerously hot temperatures and high humidity,” the warnings say. People in central and south central Kansas should expect to endure highs of about 102 degrees; the temperature in Des Moines was expected to hover around 100.

Excessive heat warnings have also been posted farther east, for parts of New Jersey, Delaware and Pennsylvania.

All told, at least 15 million people across the United States are currently being warned of dangerously high temperatures that could affect human health between Wednesday and Friday.

By the weekend, what meteorologists are calling a “heat dome” in the middle part of the country is expected to spread into the Great Lakes and the East Coast.

Extreme heat can kill. Here’s what you can do to stay safe.

“The combination of heat and humidity can take its toll on someone who is outside and overdoing it,” said Richard Bann, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service Weather Prediction Center. “It can be life-threatening.”

Last year, 108 people died from extreme heat, compared to just 30 who died from cold, according to statistics on weather-related fatalities released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Here are four safety recommendations from the National Weather Service:

  • Drink plenty of fluids.

  • Stay in an air-conditioned room.

  • Stay out of the sun.

  • Check on relatives and neighbors, especially the elderly.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 19 2019, @06:15AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 19 2019, @06:15AM (#868853)

    Also, that is almost 30 degrees warmer than the record temp (76) that BYZ posted here [weather.gov]. Even unadjusted that is far beyond most major microclimate considerations that I have a hard time believe it was anywhere close to that in actuality. Heat index, maybe; but not air temp.

  • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday July 19 2019, @08:07AM

    by Reziac (2489) on Friday July 19 2019, @08:07AM (#868880) Homepage

    Yeah, that's the page I was looking at. And yeah, who knows how accurate a private station was. But I've become a little suspicious of some official records, too. When I lived near Belgrade during the hard winters of the 1970s, me and my neighbors would often note dawn readings around -60F, even tho the official record at Gallatin Field never got that low. And the official frost line is something like 35", but pipes froze down past six feet every January.

    I'm about 15 miles down the road from Billings (near Laurel) now, and the highest overnight temp I've seen here was about 83 (I'm in a little banana belt, we don't get quite the swings they do up at the airport). But at night I can easily have a 15 degree gradient between my front yard and the hill behind my house. And it may be blowing 40mph right across the road yet be calm in my yard. It's really quite bizarre. :)

    --
    And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.