The stifling heat was notably felt in the capital, Washington, DC, where temperatures could flirt with the 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37 to 38 degrees Celsius).
Le Monde With AFP
A wave of “extreme heat” strikes tens of millions of Americans this weekend, with many temperature records expected in the center and the northeast. “This heat will fuel violent weather phenomena in the north of Midwest today, with a significant threat of destructive winds, big hailstones and a few tornadoes,” announced on Saturday July 23, the national weather service (National Weather Service, NWS).
The stifling heat, which shows the threat represented by global warming, was notably felt in the capital, Washington, DC, where temperatures could flirt with the 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37 to 38 degrees Celsius, ° C). New York was not spared, with temperatures close to 35 ° C.
The temperature felt could also reach 43 ° C in certain areas of UTAH (west), Arizona (South) and in the northeast, according to the NWS. In Boston, where the mayor, Michelle Wu, decreed a “state of emergency related to heat”, providing for the opening of municipal places to cool off and open swimming pools, he could be 37 ° C on Sunday.
giant redwoods threatened by fire in California
This heat increases the risk of fire. In the west of the United States, an important forest fire, called “Oak Fire”, said on Friday in the county of Mariposa, near the Yosemite National Park. The giant park’s redwoods had already been threatened by fire ten days ago.
Extended on an area of more than 2,500 hectares, the “Oak Fire” has already destroyed ten properties and has damaged five others. It is not at all mastered, according to a bulletin Saturday morning from the Californian department of forests and protection against fire. The American West has already experienced in recent years forest fires of exceptional magnitude and intensity, with a very clear extension of the fire season.
The planet has already recorded several heat waves this year, as in July in Western Europe or India in March-April. Their multiplication is an unmistakable sign of climate change, according to scientists. In June 2021, a “heating dome” of extremely rare intensity had sown chaos throughout the west coast of the United States and Canada, killing more than five hundred dead and causing large fires, with temperatures close to 50 ° C.