The FOX Forecaster Center warns weather patterns that have resulted in excessive heat across large parts of the western and southern U.S. will continue through the foreseeable future with increasing fire risks and drought conditions.
Forecast models show areas of high pressure will likely set up shop over large parts of the Southwest and the Gulf Coast for the remainder of July. When these weather patterns are in place, warm air is usually trapped, leading to the formation of heat waves that can send temperatures soaring into the 90s and 100s.
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 110-120-degree zone during the heat wave.
Extreme heat has caused El Paso, Texas, to experience a month of nonstop triple-digit heat, and Phoenix, Arizona, has seen temperatures reach at least 110 degrees for more than two weeks.
The heat is not only uncomfortable, but it can also be hazardous to health, and authorities said they’ve responded to hundreds of calls of heat-related illnesses. Several people have died because of heat this summer.
July is typically the warmest month of the year, but temperatures have regularly reached between 5–15 degrees above average for many places this month.
The pattern has also resulted in little precipitation for many regions of Texas and a monsoon season that has been virtually nonexistent in the Desert Southwest.
Continued hot and dry weather will result in the loss of soil moisture and continued drying out of vegetation.
Parts of the Golden State are included in the increasing fire risk, with multiple large fires that have broken out.
The fire season in California got off to a slow start due to a deluge of precipitation from atmospheric river events during the winter and early spring.
Data from the National Drought Mitigation Center shows drought conditions expanding by about 2% every week.
HEAT KILLS MORE AMERICANS THAN FLOODING, TORNADOES, HURRICANES OR LIGHTNING
If the phrase “record heat” is beginning to sound like a broken record, that’s because it is.
While there is still a month and a half to go of summer, the country is on track to see another season rank in the top half of warmest ever.
NOAA reported June’s average temperature was 0.5 degrees above normal, which ranked in the middle of records set over 129 years.
Once July concludes, the agency will calculate the average temperature over the 31 days, and the summer will officially be two-thirds in the history books.
The summers of 2022, 2021, 2012, 2011 and 1936 hold the top five spots for warmest seasons ever, with the average temperature being between 2–3 degrees above average.