And there’s no relief on the horizon - from Wednesday through Friday, temperatures are expected to reach into the 110Fs and cool only by a couple of degrees over the weekend and into next week. An excessive heat warning is in place for Wednesday morning for the area.
This year was the city’s hottest summer on record, according to AZFamily. It was also Phoenix’s hottest summer in more than a decade.
The Phoenix heat stretch was four to five times more likely to occur due to the effects of human-caused climate change , according to nonprofit Climate Central. Globally, this year is expected to surpass 2023 as the hottest year on record.
The searing temperatures had led to widespread concerns for public safety.
With elementary and high school students returning to classrooms this week, the Arizona Interscholastic Association has required that sports teams move practice times if there is extreme heat between 10am and 5pm.
Last week, the Phoenix Fire Department was forced to rescue a hiker from Camelback Mountain and warned those hitting the trails be prepared with sufficient water, and do so in the cooler, early hours of the day.
Although high temperatures are common in the Southwest in summer, 100 days in a row above 100 degrees Fahrenheit shattered a record that Phoenix set in 1993, according to the National Weather Service. The previous record was 76 consecutive days.
The triple-digit streak has been ongoing since late May, when the high temperature first hit 102F. Low temperatures in Phoenix this week were still in the high 80s.
The monsoon season, which usually offers relief in the state, started in June and typically runs through this month. However monsoon rainfall has varied across the state, and brought deadly flash flooding to the Grand Canyon.
Phoenix’s Sky Harbor International Airport received at least an inch less of rain than expected, according to The Arizona Republic . On Tuesday, the high temperature at the transit hub was 108 degrees, four degrees above normal.
Throughout the stifling conditions, residents have advised to remain indoors and stay hydrated with the city also asking them to conserve water. “Phoenix faces unique water challenges due to our desert location and it takes all of us to build a Culture of Conservation,” the city wrote in a social media post on Tuesday.
Gallego, a Democrat, has credited the Biden-Harris administration’s 2022 Inflation Reduction Act for providing resources to address climate-related issues.
Get updates delivered to you daily. Free and customizable.
It’s essential to note our commitment to transparency:
Our Terms of Use acknowledge that our services may not always be error-free, and our Community Standards emphasize our discretion in enforcing policies. As a platform hosting over 100,000 pieces of content published daily, we cannot pre-vet content, but we strive to foster a dynamic environment for free expression and robust discourse through safety guardrails of human and AI moderation.
Comments / 0