Daily temperature records will tumble as sizzling early season heat from a summerlike heat dome sends thermometers skyrocketing into the triple digits in parts of California and the West this week.
The official start of summer is just a few weeks away, but it will feel like July in much of the West as temperatures climb 20 degrees or more above average, the highest temperatures of the year so far for many locations.
Excessive heat warnings are in effect for more than 17 million people in California, Nevada, Utah and Arizona this week. The warnings are the most extreme form of heat alert issued by the National Weather Service and are used when widespread, dangerous heat is expected.
The soaring temperatures are being caused by a heat dome, a large area of high pressure that parks over an area, traps air and heats it with abundant sunshine for days or weeks. The resulting heat becomes more intense the longer a heat dome lasts.
Is it just me or was ‘heat dome’ not even a thing like 10 years ago?
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First one I personally remember was 2003 in Europe.
I remember them from the 90s in Europe, they just weren’t called heat domes back then. It was just a “blocking area of high pressure” or some metrologic words. These days the media want to hype everything up, so it needs a catchy name.
Now I don’t mean global warming isn’t real. These things happen regularly now where they were a oddity in the past and things will get very bad in the next 50 years. But it did happen in the past.
It’s more a case of the once in a thousand year storm has become a twice a year kind of thing. But hey, we millennials are used to that right? I’ve personally seen three once in a lifetime economic crashes, with plenty more on the way.
I was discussing that with my parents a few nights ago, they claim that I’m a pessimist because I don’t want to bring children into this world but my hometown used to have about 5 snowdays a year, now is one every 5 years. The summer was hot but bearable and now the “heat dome” is a normal thing every year, and even when it rains it’s usually catastrophic with large hail and flooding
From summers when we slept under quilts to ones we can’t even sleep almost naked in spring/fall, just in 15 years. From 2 weeks of snow each month on December, February and March to a day of light snow for 3 years and one medium snow once a year, if it comes once again.
Yeah I’m definitely not optimistic about the next 15 years, let alone thinking of raising children beyond that.
They’ve always been a thing in Texas. The difference is now it moves around and the rest of you get to experience the miserable heat as well.