Last Updated on 03/09/2024 by Arun jain
September is bolstering summer with heat warnings expected to cover 26 million people, mostly in the Southwest, by Wednesday.
Temperatures in cities such as Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Phoenix could be 10 to 20 degrees above normal starting Tuesday and peaking Thursday, according to federal and NBC News forecasters.
A mass of warm air pushing down on Earth’s surface, known as an upper-level belt, is strengthening in the southwest and blocking cold air from the Pacific Ocean, setting the stage for dangerous heat from California’s Central Valley to east of San Francisco. US-Mexico border at Arizona.
“Above-average temperatures are forecast to persist along much of the West Coast, including the potential for some daily records,” the National Weather Service said in a special message about the heat wave on Sunday.
The Los Angeles Weather Service office said Monday that high temperatures of 98 to 113 degrees are possible through Wednesday, with the hottest communities likely to be in the western San Fernando Valley.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said Monday that she was deploying city resources, including “aging cooling centers” and emergency operations personnel, to prepare. Additional cooling centers will open Tuesday morning, her office said in a statement.
Public libraries, parks facilities, recreation centers, senior centers, community pools and splash pads and hydration stations and shade structures will be made available, her office said. A dedicated cooling center is open 24 hours in Skid Row, with access to refresh spots, drinking water and showers, he said.
Extreme heat warnings were expected Wednesday through Friday for most of Southern California’s most populous counties: San Diego, Orange, Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara, as well as the Inland Empire of desert and mountain communities stretching nearly to Las Vegas. .
The warnings begin at the US-Mexico border and extend to rugged beaches near San Simon, California, federal forecasters said. They extend eastward into Arizona and cover southern Nevada.
National Weather Service office for Las Vegas, where the The summer was declared the hottest in recorded history, with a low-level extreme heat watch scheduled for the same period. It calls for a high of 108 by midweek.
“Drink plenty of fluids, stay in an air-conditioned room, stay out of the sun and check on relatives and neighbors,” the weather service office said in an urgent weather message about the heat wave.
The office that covers Phoenix issued a heat watch for the last three days of the week, saying in its emergency weather message Monday “dangerous hot conditions [are] is possible.”
An extreme heat warning describes impending heat that is a certainty and poses a “significant” threat to life, according to the National Weather Service. A watch is issued when such heat is likely but there is a day or two left to prepare, the weather service said.
The East Coast, meanwhile, was expected to continue experiencing normal to below-normal temperatures, while the Gulf Coast of Texas could welcome storms.
Warming in the west is unlikely to help dry, windy conditions in northern Plains states that include Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Kansas and Oklahoma. The region was covered by a federal “critical fire weather” forecast for the workweek.
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