More than 70 million Americans are waking up Tuesday to heat alerts from the Desert Southwest to Florida, and the triple-digit temperatures that just won’t let up will be sticking around.
“I think most of you know how this story goes,” FOX Weather meteorologist Britta Merwin said. “We have almost 9 million Americans that are waking up to 90 degrees or hotter.”
HELLISH HEAT WAVE SEARING US LIKELY TO DRAG ON FOR WEEKS
The upper level ridge of high pressure responsible for the heat wave in the West will expand farther across the Southwest and Gulf Coast states through mid-week.
Feels-like temperatures, or how warm the body thinks the air is when humidity and other factors are taken into account, have already ventured into the 110- to 120-degree zone during the heat wave.
Record-breaking heat is expected in the Four Corners states, Texas to the Lower Mississippi Valley, and South Florida each day. Daytime highs will routinely reside in the triple digits in the Desert Southwest and Texas, and feel like triple digits along the Gulf Coast and Florida.
On Tuesday, two dozen record-high temperatures are at risk of being broken.
According to the National Weather Service, the surface temperature of asphalt in the Las Vegas, Nevada, area got up to nearly 158 degrees on Sunday. The inside of some vehicles heated up to 178 degrees.
The heat there has been downright dangerous and can be deadly. The Southern Nevada Health District said seven people have already died since April in Southern Nevada due to heat-related illness.
Still, there have been plenty of people out on the Las Vegas Strip braving the high temperatures.
“It feels like I’m a little pig, like a rotisserie chicken in Walmart spinning around, you know?” tourist Sky Summer told FOX Weather on Monday.
The Gulf Coast and Mid-South can expect daytime highs in the mid-upper 90s that coincide with miserably high dew points, resulting in sweltering heat indices between 105 and 115 degrees.
“I know that we always have heat and humidity in Florida, but it’s very notable what’s happening in Florida over the past month,” Merwin said. “And that will be continuing at least for the next few weeks.”
Merwin adds that because the water temperatures surrounding Florida are so warm that the state is not even getting a break with the afternoon thunderstorms.
“We’re transporting in warm air off of warm water onto land that is hot and humid,” she said. “So there’s no source here that can cool anything down.”
COUNTRY STAR JASON ALDEAN SAYS HE SUFFERED HEAT EXHAUSTION DURING CONNECTICUT CONCERT
Daily low temperatures will remain quite warm, breaking record warm daily minimums in some areas, allowing for minimal relief from the heat overnight.
An expansive area of Excessive Heat Warnings and Heat Advisories remains in the Southwest, Southern Plains, western Gulf Coast, and even parts of South Florida where the air-sea interaction is leading to a feedback loop between the air and water temperatures due to the lighter than average wind flow, the FOX Forecast Center said.
HEAT KILLS MORE AMERICANS THAN FLOODING, TORNADOES, HURRICANES OR LIGHTNING
Unfortunately, the long term outlook for the region shows the heat wave persisting into next week.
To underscore just how expansive this heat is, based off the current forecast approximately 27 million people across the Lower 48 will experience an air temperature or heat index above 110 degrees over the next 7 days.
It is imperative for Americans to take action to limit their exposure to the extreme hot weather as it looks to stick around for the time being.