It’s still spring, but the scorching summer heat is just around the corner in the notoriously comfortable Pacific Northwest and western Canada. A heat wave starting this weekend could push temperatures 20 to 25 degrees Fahrenheit higher than average in some areas, breaking records.
The event will fall short of the punitive heat dome heights that wiped the region’s records in June 2021, killing hundreds. But the region, known for its cool, mild summers, still poses public health concerns, even if people aren’t accustomed to severe heat at the beginning of the season. There are also concerns that hot, dry conditions could add to the already raging wildfires in western Canada’s Alberta, causing air quality problems and sending smoke all the way to the east coast of the United States. There is also
The new heatwave is also a reminder that summers are getting hotter and faster, as humans continue to dump global-warming emissions into the atmosphere. .
Recent unseasonably high temperatures have arrived in the Pacific Northwest thanks to an anticyclone or ridge that moves through the atmosphere over the region and draws warm air from the south. A cloudless sky covered by a high pressure system illuminates the sun’s rays and warms the earth’s surface. Keila Mazurkiewicz, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s (NWS) Seattle branch, said “the weather is getting stronger by the day”, so temperatures are expected to rise over the weekend, with the highest expected on Sunday or Monday.
Climate scientist Danielle Swain of the University of California, Los Angeles and the National Center for Atmospheric Research says current weather conditions are very similar to those that caused the region’s infamous 2021 heat dome. Today’s ridges formed earlier and are more concentrated further north, but are still “massive masses of high pressure and temperatures that are essentially unprecedented for this time of year,” Swain said. This heatwave will take place a month earlier than the 2021 heatdome, so it will have cooler absolute temperatures. The background temperature is still somewhat low.
Still, temperatures could soar to low to mid-90s Fahrenheit in some areas below the ridge. Miles Higa, a meteorologist at the NWS office in Portland, Oregon, said daily records could be broken in some places, and it’s not just the maximum daytime temperature that’s of concern, but air in particular. is the lowest temperature of an unusually warm night in a cold region. -Air conditioning is not as widespread as in other places, and nighttime breezes are routinely used as an important means of cooling the home and body. “It increases people’s overall heat stress,” Higa says.
The 2021 event set new record temperatures in several locations. Temperatures reached 116 degrees Fahrenheit in Portland, 107 degrees Fahrenheit in Seattle, and 121 degrees Fahrenheit in Lytton, British Columbia, before hot wildfires destroyed much of the village. Analyzes looking for climate change signatures in extreme weather events have found that even with climate change, heat waves of this severity are rare in the region. Among them, one study calculated it to be a once-in-10,000-year event. “It was very, very extreme,” Higa says.
But even if the upcoming heat wave isn’t as intense, authorities in Portland and Seattle are warning residents to be careful when exercising outdoors. A typical weekend of yard work or a Saturday run can be dangerous if your body isn’t used. to higher temperatures. Such heat is especially dangerous for young children, the elderly, those who already have certain health problems such as asthma and cardiovascular disease, and people in low-income areas. Authorities have also warned people to be careful if they go to cool off in the charming looking local rivers as the thaw season is still on and the water temperatures are so cold that they pose an unreasonable risk of hypothermia. are doing.
The Cascade Mountains have had a lot of snow this winter. And the Pacific Northwest, like much of the western United States, relies on slowly melting snow water for a steady source of water, as temperatures typically warm gradually in the spring and summer. But heat waves like this one can melt snow too quickly for the ground or artificial reservoirs to absorb it all. “This heat wave will affect snow masses in many areas,” said Larry O’Neill, a climate scientist at Oregon State University and director of the Oregon Climate Service, especially at lower elevations. . O’Neill says if the snow continues to melt rapidly throughout the summer, the rivers could become severe by the end of the season.
In Alberta, officials are monitoring bushfires already raging in northern Alberta over concerns that hot, dry weather could exacerbate them. The fires have degraded air quality over vast areas downwind, coloring the setting sun as far away as Washington, DC. Alberta is also concerned about the health effects of heat, which has historically been synonymous with cold, snowy winters. “We’re gearing up for colder weather,” said Shelby Yamamoto, an environmental epidemiologist at the University of Alberta, but “heat is becoming a higher priority.”
No concrete studies yet exist on the role of climate change in upcoming events, but it is clear that summers are getting hotter everywhere. The heat waves that are occurring now are expected to be warmer than in previous decades. Also, while the summer range is expanding more and more, the winter area is shrinking at the same time. A 2021 study found that across the northern hemisphere, the meteorological summer increased from his 78 days in 1952 to his 95 days by 2011. There is also a clear trend towards hotter summers in the Pacific Northwest. . Average summer temperatures in Portland and Seattle are now about 3°C higher than in 1970, according to analysis of climate records by Climate Central, a nonprofit climate research organization. The region is seeing more days above 90 degrees, the threshold for extreme heat in temperate climates, and such days are expected to arrive steadily earlier in the season, O’Neill said. . “What used to be a warm spring day can now be over 90 degrees,” he added.
