Phoenix scorches at 110 for 19th straight day, breaking big U.S. city records in global heat wave
By SETH BORENSTEIN and ANITA SNOW (Associated Press)
PHOENIX (AP) — The extreme heat scorching Phoenix blazed into the record books Tuesday, the 19th consecutive day temperatures hit at least 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43 Celsius) in a summer of suffering echoing around much of the globe.
As human-caused climate change and a newly formed El Nino are combining to shatter heat records worldwide, the Phoenix region stands apart among major metropolitan areas in the U.S.
No other major city – defined as the 25 most populous in the United States – has had any stretch of 110-degree days or 90-degree nights longer than Phoenix, said weather historian Christopher Burt of the Weather Company.
“It’s the longest streak that we’ve ever seen in this country,” said NOAA Climate Analysis Group Director Russell Vose, who chairs a committee on national records. “When you have several million people subjected to that sort of thermal abuse, there are impacts.”
Vose and others found smaller places such as Death Valley and Needles, California; and Casa Grande, Arizona, have had longer streaks, but not where many people live. Death Valley has had an 84-day streak of 110-degree temperatures and a 47-day streak of nighttime temperatures that haven’t fallen below 90, Vose said.
For Phoenix, it’s not only the brutal daytime highs that are deadly. The lack of a nighttime cooldown can rob people without access to air conditioning of the break their bodies need to continue to function properly.
With Tuesday’s low of 94, the city has had nine straight days of temperatures that didn’t go below 90 at night, breaking another record there, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Matt Salerno, who called it “pretty miserable when you don’t have any recovery overnight.”
On Monday, the city set a record for the hottest overnight low temperature: 95 (35 Celsius). The heat built up so early that the city hit the 110 mark a couple minutes before noon.
In the hours before the new record was set, ripples of sweat streamed down the sunburned face of Lori Miccichi, 38, as she pushed a shopping cart filled with her belongings through downtown Phoenix, looking for a place to get out of the heat.
“I’ve been out here a long time and homeless for about three years,” said Miccichi. “When it’s like this, you just have to get into the shade. This last week has been the hottest I ever remember.”
Some 200 cooling and hydration centers have been set up across the metro area to cool residents, but most shut down between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. due to staffing and funding issues.
The last time Phoenix didn’t reach 110 F (43.3 C) was June 29, when it hit 108 (42.2 C). The record of 18 days above 110 that was tied Monday was first set in 1974, and it appeared destined to be shattered with temperatures forecast above that through the end of the week.
“This will likely be one of the most notable periods in our health record in terms of deaths and illness,” said David Hondula, chief heat officer for the city. “Our goal is for that not to be the case.”
Phoenix City Parks and Recreation workers Joseph Garcia, 48, and Roy Galindo, 28, tried to stay cool as they trimmed shrubs. They work from 5 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. to avoid the hottest time of the day.
“It gets super hot out here and sometimes we have to take care of the public,” said Galindo, adding he sometimes find people passed out on the grass. “A lot of these people aren’t drinking water.”
Retired Phoenix firefighter Mark Bracy, who has lived in the city most of his 68 years, went on a two-hour morning climb Tuesday up and down Piestewa Peak, which is 2,610 feet high.
“I’ve been going up there regularly since I was in the Cub Scouts, but it was never this hot back then,” said Bracy. “We’ve had hot spells before, but never anything like this.”
Dr. Erik Mattison, director of the emergency department at Dignity Health Chandler Regional Medical Center in metro Phoenix, recalled a hiker in his 60s who was brought in last week with a core body temperature of 110 degrees Fahrenheit.
“Heat makes people sick. Heat makes people die,” Mattison said.
“And it’s not just older people,” he added. We’ve seen professional athletes fall ill in the heat during training camp.”
Phoenix’s heat wave has both long and short-term causes, said Arizona State University’s Randy Cerveny, who coordinates weather record verification for the World Meteorological Organization.
“The long-term is the continuation of increasing temperatures in recent decades due to human influence on climate, while the short-term cause is the persistence over the last few weeks of a very strong upper level ridge of high pressure over the western United States,” he said.
That high pressure, also known as a heat dome, has been around the Southwest cooking it for weeks, and when it moved, it moved to be even more centered on Phoenix, said National Weather Service meteorologist Isaac Smith.
The Southwest high pressure not only brings the heat, it prevents cooling rain and clouds from bringing relief, Smith said. Normally, the Southwest’s monsoon season kicks in around June 15 with rain and clouds. But Phoenix has not had measurable rain since mid-March.
“Although it is always hot in the summer in Phoenix, this heat wave is intense and unrelenting,” said Katharine Jacobs, director of the Center for Climate Adaptation Science and Solutions at the University of Arizona. “Unfortunately, it is a harbinger of things to come given that the most reliable projected impacts of climate change are those that are directly related to the increase in global temperatures.”
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Borenstein reported from Washington. Follow Seth Borenstein and Anita Snow on Twitter at @borenbears and @asnowreports
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