First the number of wildfires this winter and spring were unusually high. Then the tornadoes and the extreme storms that hatched them were unusually numerous and destructive. Now a whole lot of people across the US of A are suffering from the latest in a string of “unusual” weather events — a massive heat wave:
On Tuesday parts of 18 states stretching from North Dakota south to Texas and east to Ohio were under a heat advisory, warning or watch, according to the National Weather Service.
When the humidity is factored into the mix, it will feel like 110 degrees in some parts of the nation.
“This is unusual,” said Pat Slattery, spokesman for the weather service. “There’s no sugar coating anything here.”
Indeed, forecasters are calling this current wave of excessive temperatures and high humidity “unrelenting.”
Across the country, this month’s summer’s searing heat has tied or broken high temperature records nearly 900 times, reports CBS News correspondent Cynthia Bowers.
A half-dozen cities set new all-time highs. On June 15 it hit 105º in Tallahasse, Fla., and on June 26 records were broken or tied in Amarillo, Texas (111º), Borger, Texas (113º), Dalhart, Texas (110º), Childress, Texas (117º) and Gage, Okla. (113º).
In Oklahoma there’s no place to hide – Oklahoma City temperatures have been 90 degrees or more for 47 straight days, topping a hundred nearly every day this month. With triple-digit heat possible through September, the city is on pace to break its record for such days (50, set in 1980).
In Enid, Okla., asphalt at a major intersection along U.S. Highway 412 buckled Saturday night from the intense heat.
The governor asked for a statewide day of prayer in the hopes of divine intervention.
Pray away Governor. I wish you luck with that, but so far all the praying hasn’t helped Texas. What’s worse is that these high temperatures are combined with high humidity, which means little if any relief from the heat even after sundown.
According to the weather service outlook, the central United States from North Dakota to Texas and east to the Carolinas, excluding parts of the Northeast and Southern Florida, will see excessive heat through July 29.
What I want to know is when are the meteorologists going to stop calling all the extreme weather we’ve experienced over the past decade “unusual?” To me, this is starting to look like the new normal. Droughts, heat waves, wildfires, 500 year floods every five years or so — what we used to call unusual is what I now expect. But then I’m one of those heretical, devil worshiping believers in climate change.
Meanwhile people and animals suffer:
The Schwan’s USA Cup youth soccer tournament in Blaine, Minn., suspended play for a time Sunday because of heat indexes that soared to 110 degrees. Tournament spokesman Barclay Kruse said organizers wanted to avoid any heat-related health issues before they developed.
Police said heat may have played a role in the death of a 55-year-old man at a homeless camp in Springfield, Mo., on Saturday. Police found him in a small tent after others at the camp raised alarm. An autopsy is scheduled for Monday.
The heat also is adversely affecting wildlife. The Texas AgriLife Extension Service said last week that pregnant does are having difficulty carrying fawns to term and other fawns are being born prematurely.
Texas A&M University researchers determined the period from February to June was the driest such period on record in Texas, with a statewide average of 4.26 inches of rain. The next driest February-to-June stretch was in 1917, with a 6.45-inch rain average.
Yeah, it’s unusual all right.
remembering that it’s “climate change” not simply “warming”; where I am in NorCal we’re having our second consecutive cooler-than-average summer. We had rain in June, which is NOT normal around here.
Still, for warming overall, according to the National Ocean & Atmospheric Administration, “The first half of 2011 (January-June) was the 11th warmest on record for the combined global land and ocean surface temperature.”
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/
And 2010 was tied with 2005 for the hottest year on record.
http://www.universetoday.com/82514/2010-tied-for-warmest-year-on-record-say-noaa-and-nasa/
I’ve been keeping my eye on the temperature in the city where I work – and we just hit the milestone!
Temperature
100.0 °F
Feels Like 117 °F
FWIW, the previous high on this day in history was 96, so it’s not like we just barely beat it out. And it’s still getting hotter.
I think the most dispiriting thing is our utter helplessness. There’s nothing we can do because we’ve been totally defeated politically and scientifically we don’t have the knowledge to change the weather. Even if we reduced carbon outputs by huge amounts the amount of carbon still in the air would ensure this kind of thing will continue for years if not decades to come. And all the while we have to use our air conditioners to function which adds even more carbon to the atmosphere.
It’s all about the severe storms here. Over the past year, the damage done by wind and hail has been extraordinary. Ice storms early in the year did massive damage to trees and power lines. Now we have had a series of dangerous thunderstorms, where entire neighborhoods have been wrecked. Last month, a hailstorm caused widespread destruction, including a car dealership that had damage to every single car on the lot. The hailstones were as big as baseballs.
Last week one of those storms hit my parents’ neighborhood. They were without power for three days in a suburban area. Driving around the neighborhood (where it was possible) I was horrified to see trees lying everywhere. Forty year old pine trees, yanked out of the ground by the roots. They called them straight line winds, but the damage done spanned miles in all directions.
I am not a climate specialist, but I can’t remember storms of this intensity coming up every couple of months. It’s scary.
The Schwan’s USA Cup youth soccer…
That would be these Schwan’s?
Frozen food company’s signature event cancelled due to heat….it would be funny, execept
Like I needed another reason not to go to Texas or Oklahoma.
It, might we be wise to start discussing not just the disaster in front of us, but the ramifications of a population that discovers its way of making a living and its homeland have literaly evaporated; ie, ranchers in TX, farmers’ land stricken by drought and then soon a whole population will begin migrating towards cooler climes, where water is still available.
Here in WA we have shared the phenomena of 2 cooler than norm summers with OR and CA. I’m awaiting the flood of first tourists and then actual shifts of population. Unfortunately, there’s no more jobs here than anywhere else and moving isn’t and won’t be the answer. It’s climate after all. And this summer’s balmy weather may be fickle enough to move to OK next year.
We haven’t had much luck in getting the deniers to recognize climate change, or to even think analytically about how these new weather patterns fit in, but the impact in population shift just might be a wicked ride.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of Americans do not have the cognitive or intellectual capability to understand the nuances and scientific foundation upon which climate change is based. People will always default to what they, and everyone else in their tribe can understand, and that is weather. The two will be indelibly and mistakenly intertwined in the minds of most everyone. It is simple. Everyone can feel like an expert. And there is no shortage of continual confirmation bias for them to feel all snug and smug in their beds of naivete. Who needs to listen to those “liberal scientists” when we can all just look out the window and see what we want to see.
And that will probably be the case until the ramifications of climate change become so catastrophic and so obvious that it is undeniable to the ignorant masses that “Dang, something is happening, and it ain’t just weather”. I’m afraid that we can only hope that our planet and its complex climate systems can find a way to avoid what we are trying so hard to make a reality.
We are at the mercy of nature and its ways. I’m afraid that the human race as a whole is unwilling to recognize and accept the looming danger and do anything about it in time to change our course. Our heads are in the sand. That is, until the sand becomes too hot.