Early heat wave breaks records in western US June 8, 2024

Although the southwestern United States is accustomed to sweltering heat, the current heat wave has been historically early and extreme.

By AFP - Agence France Presse

Early heat wave breaks records in western US

Scorching temperatures broke early summer records in the western United States before the region's first major heatwave of the year subsided somewhat on Friday.

Millions of people in California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas are under excessive heat alerts this week.

Although the region is used to sweltering heat, climate change exacerbated by human activity has led to more extreme weather and the current heatwave was historically early.

Las Vegas registered 111 degrees Fahrenheit (44 degrees Celsius) on Thursday, marking the earliest date in the year that this temperature has ever been reached.

“The last few days have been HOT,” noted the city's National Weather Service, publishing a long list of locations where daily records have been broken.

Among them, the notoriously scorching Death Valley desert reached 122F.

An excessive heat warning is in effect until Saturday in Las Vegas, where libraries have been converted into cooling stations for residents to escape the furnace, and some events have been forced to be held indoors.

At a Trump rally in Arizona, nearly a dozen people were taken to hospitals with heat exhaustion, firefighters told a local ABC affiliate.

Hiking on the popular Camelback Mountain and Piestewa Peak trails in the state capital, Phoenix, was banned due to the heat.

“With temperatures reaching close to 110 degrees, this is not the day for hiking,” the Phoenix Fire Department posted on Facebook.

Coastal regions were largely spared.

But in a potentially ominous sign of the summer months to come, several small wildfires have broken out in California.

The largest of these, about 150 miles northwest of Los Angeles, burned 3,600 acres (more than 1,450 hectares) of the agricultural Central Valley before being largely contained by firefighters.

After nearly 20 years of drought and in a climate that is slowly becoming more arid, California has seen an alarming number of destructive wildfires in recent years.

Forest fires are a natural - and necessary - part of the region's life cycle.

But climate change, caused by humanity burning fossil fuels and pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, is making them bigger, hotter, and more unpredictable.

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