More than 95 million people from Southern California to western Pennsylvania and as far south as Florida are already under an excessive heat warning or heat advisory
Neighbors Samuel Hernandez, Maria Hernandez, Luisa Ortega and Issac Montelongo sit outside as they watch the kids play in water during a heatwave with expected temperatures of 102 F (39 C) in Dallas, Texas, U.S. June 12, 2022. Though the heat wave caused electricity use in Texas to reach an all time high, the power grid remained largely stable without major issues.
Image: Shelby Tauber / Reuters
Heat-related warnings and advisories were in effect Wednesday for nearly a third of the U.S. population, mostly in the Midwest and Southeast, the National Weather Service said, adding that it may take weeks to see relief.
More than 95 million people from Southern California to western Pennsylvania and as far south as Florida were under an excessive heat warning or heat advisory, meteorologists said. Residents should expect to see temperatures rise well into the 90s and 100s, with heat indexes — a measure of how hot it feels factoring in humidity and temperature — soaring in some locations into the triple digits.
By 9 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday, 17 weather stations had already broken their high temperatures records for June 15, said Bryan Jackson, a forecaster with the National Weather Service, including those in Chicago (96 degrees), Atlanta (99), and Lansing, Michigan (95).
In Macon, Georgia, temperatures rose to 104, a 4-degree increase from the previous record for the date, set in 2011, Jackson said.
“When you break record highs in June, it is pretty significant,” he added. “This is a particularly hot air mass that’s across the east-central U.S.”
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