"At midday, more than 35 million people in southern #Texas, #Louisiana and #Florida were under excessive #heat warnings, watches and advisories extending through the three-day Juneteenth weekend, the National Weather Service said.
The growing frequency and intensity of severe weather across the U.S. is symptomatic of human-driven #ClimateChange, climate scientists say."
"#Mexican authorities urged people across the country to take safety precautions on Thursday as an unusual late Spring heat wave sent temperatures soaring, with cooler days possibly weeks away.
In nine states including #NuevoLeon, temperatures were forecast to top 45C (113F) on Thursday."
In case you were wondering where this #heatwave came from:
"According to #ClimateCentral’s analysis, Austin’s high temperatures by Thursday afternoon exceeding 100° are at least five times more likely because of #ClimateChange."
"A law in Texas will soon override labor ordinances statewide that guarantee, among other things, construction workers are given 10-minute breaks to drink #water and #rest in the #shade."
" Many Texans are grappling with a double whammy of destructive storms and record-breaking temperatures this week.
Tennis ball-sized #hail – around 2.75 inches – was reported in several cities in #Colorado and #Texas on Wednesday, including in Matador. In Jayton, Texas, a 4-inch hailstone was reported.
Nearly 500,000 homes and businesses were without #power overnight in Texas and Oklahoma."
@CelloMomOnCars one for #ClimateDiary
I would love to hear from people living through all this right now. I can’t imagine what it’s like to experience all this - really hard and bewildering. And are there conversations about #ClimateCrisis? How are people talking about to each other, on the news, on social media?
This is word cloud shows the past 7 days discussion around extreme heat, heat waves, etc. It combines news and social media. The center is all taken up with the news story of young people in Montana suing the state during much of the week. Here's a sample link:
The more recent discussion appears to be discussing possible causes, correlations, and how to stay safe. This would be longer research to give a truer answer.
If you search for "heatwave Texas" on news(dot)google(dot)com, you can see the gist of the new coverage: the risk to the electric grid, the health risks. All this in the mostly mainstream news. Not all of the pieces connect the dots to climate change, but outright climate denial is now harder to find in the news than it was, say, a few years ago.
Most of the stories have personal anecdotes.
One mailman died from the heat, in Dallas 😟
Searing heatwave in #Texas pushes electricity grid to the brink - again.
Not helped by the Texas grid being entirely stand-alone.
Governor #Abbott nixed a bill for better building #efficiency.
There are problems with gas-powered plants.
And yet, officials are calling for more gas plants.
(Is this what you want for the rest of your lives, Texans?)
Workers walk out rather than face dangerous #heat on the job. But not everyone can.
"Gathering data on heat-related deaths is difficult but according to #OSHA, at least five workers in #Texas died in 2022 due to heat exposure. In one case a 24-year-old landscaping worker who was experiencing #heatstroke symptoms had the police called on him after he became combative. He passed out and later died in a hospital due to severe #HeatStroke."
TM: Do you think that what we’re experiencing in Texas this month is going to become more frequent? Should we consider this a preview of what’s to come?
JG: Absolutely. As long as we keep burning fossil fuels, and as long as we keep heating up the planet . . . we’re absolutely going to see more heat waves and more extreme heat waves. The only real question is how extreme and how fast the change occurs.
"Not only is #Florida sizzling in record-crushing #heat, but the #ocean waters that surround it are scorching, as well. The unprecedented ocean warmth around the state — connected to historically warm oceans worldwide — is further intensifying its #heatwave and stressing coral reefs, with conditions that could end up strengthening #hurricanes."
There are a lot of vulnerable and older people living in Florida; I hope they all find ways to stay cool.
"Miami’s heat index soared to 110 degrees on Monday and has reached at least 100 on 30 straight days."
That's grim.
This is humid. heat and a lot worse than the heat in Europe last year, and that took nearly 62,000 lives. Relatively few Europeans have air conditioning, but still.
"The southern #UnitedStates is in its third week of an extreme and stubborn #heatwave that refuses to budge. It continues to set records as nearly 100 million Americans remain under heat alerts from South Florida to northern Nevada."
"As the #Phoenix area enters its 18th day of temperatures above 110, #Arizona Public Service (APS) says the peak #energy usage record was broken not once but twice in the course of two days."
"The 12News I-Team heard from eight women currently incarcerated at the state prison complex who expressed similar complaints about extreme heat, broken AC, inadequate swamp coolers and some women saying their cells were hitting more than 100 degrees."
The #heat won't stop.
"The brutal #heatwave across the southern #UnitedStates — remarkable for its size, intensity and duration — is still going strong, with little hope for significant relief. In fact, forecasts show the extreme heat expanding through this weekend, with approximately 80 million people experiencing a temperature or heat index above 105 degrees, and continuing well into next week."
"In the midst of an already record-breaking #heatwave, #Phoenix, Ariz., set a particularly eye-popping #record: the #temperature only dropped to 97 degrees Fahrenheit overnight between Tuesday and Wednesday, setting an all-time record high for a #NighttimeLow.
When temperatures stay high overnight, they place a particularly heavy burden on the body, raising the risk of heat illness and death."
"As the unrelenting heat wave in the US enters its 39th consecutive day, millions of people from California to Florida are asking: When will it end?
The extreme #heat could continue into August in some of the hardest-hit areas and even a brief glimmer of cooler hope for some parts of the country headed into the weekend will only mean new areas swelter as a heat dome slides west."
"The last few months of this has been exhausting for #Florida residents. But it’s been a different kind of draining for #HurricaneIan survivors like Goulet, who were already just getting by before the storm, and then had their homes, possessions, routines, jobs, neighborhoods and social networks ripped from them."
"These rogue companies made billions peddling products they knew would cook the planet. All while forcing the rest of us to bear the escalating costs—from #wildfires and #heat stroke to #crop failures and swollen utility bills.
#ClimateJustice demands polluters pay for the hellish heat they knew their products would create. "
In #Phoenix, AZ, a Wednesday night storm brought heavy dust, lightning and rainfall of 0.25 inch, "pushing the overnight low below 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32.2 degrees Celsius) for the first time in 16 days. "
"The situation was bleak in #Phoenix, where the Maricopa County medical examiner's office was over capacity Thursday amid a growing number of #heat-related deaths, forcing officials to bring in coolers for the first time since an early pandemic wave."
I just asked my town to extend the opening hours of the cooling centers: they close at 4pm, the height of the heat.
@CelloMomOnCars i didn’t realise you were based in #Arizona. Just read that the #HeatDome is expected to stay into August - i can’t even imagine what it like living in this heat for weeks on end, for people, animals, plants. So sorry
"An already record-setting summer #heatwave will continue through August and will put more than 51 million #Americans at risk of #health impacts, according to new data from federal health officials."
Sixteen people in #Louisiana died in June and July from #heat-related causes, and more than 3000 were treated in emergency rooms.
"As concerning as those numbers are, “all of this is an undercount,” she said. That’s because exposure to heat doesn’t always end up in medical charts or death records."
"The intense, record-setting #heat that has smothered much of the southern tier of the #UnitedStates from Arizona to Florida since June continues this week with little relief in sight."
"The poorest #Americans and minority communities already live in hotter neighborhoods and they are more likely to live in older, less insulated and drafty homes.
Many states don’t even offer the assistance of the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or [#LIHEAP] for summer months, and those that do often run out of funds before the hottest days roll around. The program has been slow to adapt to #ClimateChange’s hotter summers."
"Gov. Katie Hobbs has issued a heat state of #emergency for #Arizona, to support local heat relief efforts in impacted counties including Maricopa, Coconino and Pinal and also signed an executive order to “better coordinate future government heat responses statewide and announced state-run #CoolingCenters.”
Nearly 60 heat-associated deaths have been confirmed in Maricopa County so far this year, with over 300 other deaths under investigation."
"Of note, #heat events -- which kill far more people than any other weather event -- have never been designated "disasters" by any U.S. president, which would allow the Federal Emergency Management Agency and state governments to provide relief to affected residents.
Heat-related #mortality is underestimated, with the official U.S. estimate at 700 annual deaths; however, other modeled estimates place the number closer to 12,000."
"Effects in #NewOrleans have included heat-related emergency calls increasing from an average of 25 per month to 100 this year. At least six #heat-related deaths have occurred in the city, according to figures from last week."
"The state’s electric #grid operator is asking Texans to limit their power use on Sunday between 7 and 10 p.m., the second such request in three days as #ExtremeHeat continues to grip the state.
The Electric Reliability Council of #Texas said the request was spurred by “extreme temperatures, continued high demand & unexpected loss of #ThermalGeneration” — in Texas, thermal power sources are largely natural-gas-powered plants. "
@CelloMomOnCars But none of them have political power. The greedy folks who did, those who haven't happily died rich already, can be added to the list of those responsible. Yet, here we are in the U.S. at the mercy of RW media and the bullshit way the Senate is populated, giving undue power to tiny rural populations trivially propagandized to act against everyone's interests by that parasitic media which will never let them be. We must find a way to rid ourselves of Murdoch's parasites.
@CelloMomOnCars
All I can think of reading reports like this is the cooking of marine life and complete collapse of the marine food chain…especially the glorious sea birds who depend on it for life.
Fuck the fossil fuel industry, and the investors & politicians who enable it.
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