Record High Temps Grip Many American Cities

[Madame Butterfly 0]

Record Temperatures Grip Many Cities

 

By JOHN M. BRODER, The New York Times

 

 

 

 

 

PHOENIX - A relentless and lethal blanket of heat has settled on much of the western United States, forcing the cancellation of dozens of airline flights, threatening the loss of electrical power, stoking wildfires and leaving 20 people dead in Phoenix alone in just the past week.

 

Fourteen of the victims here are thought to have been homeless, although the heat also claimed the life of a 97-year-old man who died in his bedroom, a 37-year-old man who succumbed in his car and two older women who died in homes without air-conditioning.

 

Daytime highs in Phoenix have remained near 110 degrees for more than a week, and municipal officials acknowledge that it is almost impossible to deal with the needs of the estimated 10,000 to 20,000 people living on the streets. The city has barely 1,000 shelter beds, and hundreds of them are available only in the winter.

 

The lack of preparation for the homeless here is obvious to those sweltering on the sidewalk outside the Society of St. Vincent de Paul relief center in a zone of desolation between the office towers of downtown Phoenix and the State Capitol.

 

"I'm dying out here," said a homeless man in his 40's who goes by the name of Romeo, crouched in a sliver of shade on a littered sidewalk while waiting for a handout meal and a bottle of water. "The police are making us move all over the place. Where do they expect us to go? They need some more shelters."

 

The Phoenix police and private social service agencies have been passing out thousands of bottles of water donated by grocery chains and individuals. But the fierce heat continues to take a toll.

 

 

 

 

"We've not seen anything like this before," said Tony Morales, a Phoenix police detective. "We get heat-related deaths every summer, usually 5 to 10 deaths through the whole summer, but nothing like this."

 

In Maricopa County as a whole, which includes Phoenix and its suburbs, 21 people died of heat exposure all of last year, just one more than the city's toll in the last several days.

 

Officials of the National Weather Service estimate that more than 200 heat records have been broken in the West during the last two weeks. On Tuesday, Las Vegas tied its record for any date, 117 degrees. Reno and other locations in Nevada have set records with nine consecutive days of temperatures at 100 or higher. The temperature in Denver on Wednesday reached 105 degrees, making it the hottest day there since 1878. The highest temperature for the entire region during the heat wave has been 129, recorded at Death Valley, Calif.

 

The weather forced airlines to cancel more than two dozen flights this week, remove passengers from fully loaded planes, limit the number of tickets sold on some flights and take other measures to withstand the heat.

 

The reasons for that are related to engineering. Aircraft manufacturers have customarily set temperature limits at which their planes can be safely operated. (The limits are lower at higher altitudes, as in the Rocky Mountains, and higher at lower altitudes, as in the desert that surrounds Las Vegas.) High temperatures mean aircraft engines must take in more air in order to create the greater thrust the planes need to leave the ground. But airplane makers also have limits on the amount of thrust that an engine can produce. If the engines exceed those limits, they may not perform properly. At that point, aircraft manufacturers advise, the airlines should remove weight from planes - either passengers or cargo - or, in the worst cases, not fly at all.

 

United Airlines canceled seven United Express flights out of Denver on Wednesday, when the record-tying temperature there exceeded the operating limit for the carrier's propeller planes, said a spokesman, Jeff Green. "It was just so extreme, and stayed on so long, that we had to cancel flights," Mr. Green said.

 

America West canceled 22 flights out of its Las Vegas hub this week, 11 each on Monday and Tuesday. The temperature of 117 there was approaching the limit for America West's regional jets: 117.26, above which they should not fly, said Linda Larsen, a spokeswoman for Mesa Airlines, which operates the flights for America West.

 

On the other hand, Southwest Airlines, one of the biggest carriers operating in Las Vegas and Phoenix, has not canceled any flights because of the heat, a spokesman said. And Frontier Airlines merely refused to fly any pets.

 

The extraordinary heat has lasted for many weeks in the Southwestern desert, where it has exacted a high price in lives along the Mexican border. Officials of the United States Bureau of Customs and Border Protection say 101 illegal migrants have died of heat so far this fiscal year, which runs from October through September. That compares with 95 heat-related deaths in all of the previous 12 months.

 

 

 

 

Twenty-one border crossers have died in Arizona just since July 1, said Salvador Zamora, a spokesman for the border agency. The agency has stepped up its efforts to rescue migrants from the heat, using trucks and helicopters to aid people in distress in the brutal sun.

 

Here in Phoenix, where the issue of rescue involves the homeless, Moises Gallegos, the city's deputy director of community services, said that space was available in downtown shelters but that some of the homeless refused to use it. Some are drug or alcohol abusers who do not want to be tested and treated, a condition for entry, and others are mentally ill and refuse all offers of help, Mr. Gallegos said.

 

But some private social service agencies contend that there is a critical lack of shelter space here, and criticize officials for not opening a 500-bed city-owned homeless shelter that is used only in the winter.

 

"We need a year-round overflow shelter," said Terry Bower, director of the Human Services Campus Day Resource Center.

 

Elsewhere in Arizona, firefighters are struggling to contain a swarm of 20 wildfires around the state, most sparked by lightning, including a 60,000-acre blaze northeast of Phoenix that shut several major highways. Across the West as a whole, 32 large wildfires are burning, fueled by the heat, dry conditions and a profusion of brush created by the winter's heavy rains, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

 

And in California, the state's Independent System Operator, which handles the flow of power to three-quarters of California customers, declared a Stage 2 emergency on Thursday and Friday, the first in two years. Stage 2 means that utilities are within 5 percent of their maximum production of electricity and that interruption of power to some customers is possible.

 

Stephanie McCorkle, a spokeswoman for the Independent System Operator, said the emergency was in effect for Southern California and asked residents to conserve electricity. Ms. McCorkle said the system had experienced 14 consecutive days in which demand in Southern California was near capacity.

 

"The Bay Area is not hot, and that has been our saving grace," she said. "L.A. is sizzling."

 

 

 

 

Craig Schmidt, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service's regional headquarters in Salt Lake City, said records had been falling across the Western states since the heat wave started on July 12.

 

In Phoenix, it was at least 110 every day from July 11 to 19; on Friday the temperature peaked at 108.

 

There may be some relief in sight, though: monsoons are moving into the area. The rain and cloud cover will cool things down a bit, officials said, but humidity will rise, prolonging the misery.

 

"Throughout the Western states - you have to estimate, but more than 200 records have probably been broken, and that's just talking daily records," Mr. Schmidt said. "These records are no fun to break."

 

Among the most remarkable was the one in Las Vegas, where the 117-degree reading on Tuesday matched the record for any date, set in 1942. The 95-degree low on Tuesday was also a record for Las Vegas, as was the average temperature that day, 104 degrees.

 

In Death Valley, meanwhile, the temperature never dropped below 100 degrees in two 24-hour periods.

 

Mr. Schmidt attributes the heat to a high pressure system that refused to budge.

 

"This one went on for so long, because there's a very strong ridge of high pressure centered over Utah and Arizona," he said, "and it kept the monsoon moisture from working its way northward. That usually cools things off with thunderstorms and clouds."

 

Andy Bailey, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Las Vegas, said: "It's probably fair to say what just wrapped up was probably the most intense heat wave the city's ever seen. We had a string of four days where it was 115 or above."

 

Now, however, the region is facing a new threat from the expected summer monsoons and thunderstorms, Mr. Bailey said.

 

"We're concerned with flash flooding today and tomorrow," he said.

[mj 7]

It is supposed to get up tp 96 degrees this week in my city.

[Madame Butterfly 0]

The heat index is supposed to hit 115 here today.

 

Thankfully, by Tuesday it is supposed to be gone. :P

[Theunicornhunter 2]

As of about 2:45 the heat index was 101, temp only 90.

 

Tropical Storm Franklin out to sea

Florida bakes from hot air pushed ashore by storm

 

Saturday, July 23, 2005; Posted: 9:58 p.m. EDT (01:58 GMT)

 

MIAMI, Florida (AP) -- Tropical Storm Franklin strengthened Saturday as it moved away from the Bahamas and headed eastward in the Atlantic, while its rotation carried extremely hot weather to Florida.

 

Heat index readings along Florida's Atlantic coast could exceed 110 degrees (43 Celsius) during the weekend, even though Franklin's 70 mph (113 kph) sustained winds and strong rain were not forecast to affect land. It was expected to continue strengthening into Sunday and would be classified as a hurricane if wind speed increases to at least 74 mph (119 kph).

[Madame Butterfly 0]

Dupage Arpt. 07/24/2005 2:53 PM EDT

Temperature: 99°F 37°C

Conditions: Fair/Windy

Winds: WSW 21 MPH WSW 34 KPH

Relative Humidity: 39%

Barometer: 29.87 Falling

Visibility: 10.00 Miles 16.09 Kilometers

Feels Like: 107°F

[Itchygomba69 0]

Tomorow in Pittsburgh its gonna get close to 100, I work early morning and am off in the After noon me and Alana (g/f) will spend the afternoon at Sandcastle Waterpark

 

:oops:

 

EDIT: I forgot to mention it hasnt hit 100 in 10 years here

Edited July 24, 2005 by dragonwrangler95

[Gary Phaserman 0]

Depending on who you trust, it either hit 100 or 98, but the heat index here was over 100. and with the high humidity (in the 90's) it certainly felt hot and muggy. And that's in Illinois! the average temperature is about 14 degrees cooler, with about 15 to 20 percent less humidity

[Madame Butterfly 0]

Triple-Digit Temperatures Scorch the Midwest

By NATHANIEL HERNANDEZ, AP

 

 

 

 

 

CHICAGO - Skyrocketing temperatures surpassed the 100-degree mark here for the first time in six years, prompting Chicago officials to implement an emergency response plan honed after hundreds of people died in a heat wave a decade ago.

 

Sweat-drenched city workers fanned out across Chicago on Sunday, checking on elderly residents and shuttling people to cooling centers. By late afternoon, temperatures at Midway Airport had reached 104 degrees, just one degree lower than the highest temperature ever recorded in the city, according to the National Weather Service

 

"If you looked at who died in 1995, it was not triathletes, it wasn't people at ballparks, it wasn't people at outdoor festivals, it was the elderly who were living alone," said Dr. William Paul, acting commissioner of the city's Public Health Department.

 

Chicago was among scores of cities suffering amid a blazing heat wave that stretched across parts of the upper Midwest. Other areas in the region also reached the triple-digits — temperatures hit 102 degrees in St. Louis and 101 in Iowa City, Iowa. Twenty-one people, mostly homeless, have died from heat in Arizona this summer.

 

In Illinois, Chicago officials on Sunday implemented an emergency response plan that was honed after 700 people died during a July 1995 heat wave. An automated calling system began contacting 40,000 elderly residents at 9 a.m. to inform them about the heat.

 

"You can't wait for an emergency to find these folks," said Joyce Gallagher, commissioner of the city's Department on Aging. "On a day like today, let's just say every single senior who doesn't have air conditioning is at risk."

 

 

 

Chicago Fire Department spokeswoman Rosa Escareno said three people appear to have died Sunday from heat-related injuries, but she added that it would be days before causes of death would be confirmed. The Cook County medical examiner's office had not attributed any deaths to the weather.

 

Sunday's broiling conditions came on the 71st anniversary of the highest temperature ever recorded in Chicago. The mercury hit 105 degrees at O'Hare International Airport on July 24, 1934, said Bob Somrek, a weather service meteorologist.

 

An excessive heat warning was to remain in effect until Monday for most of central and eastern Missouri, as well as western portions of Illinois.

 

The sweltering temperatures, however, did not stop tens of thousands of people from attending Lollapalooza, a two-day music festival held in Chicago this weekend.

[Capt_Picard 0]

Going to be in the mid 80's this week in Seattle... break out the ice tea and A.C.