© Reuters. A general view of a homeless camp in downtown Phoenix as unhoused people receive medical care from the Circle City Mobile Medical Unit on the 14th day of temperatures soaring to 110 degrees Fahrenheit, in Phoenix, Arizona, U.S. July 13, 2023. REUTER
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Written by Sharon Bernstein, Rachel Nostrant, and Rich McKay
(Reuters) – Michael Shields has been maintaining swimming pools in the Phoenix area for years, enough time to hone a strategy for surviving the sweltering heat that descends on this Arizona desert town each summer.
He usually gets up at 4 am, covers himself with protective clothing, drinks electrolyte drinks and douses his hands and face in sunscreen. Ready to face hell, he arrives at his first customer’s home well before dawn, when the temperature is already in the mid-90s.
Not surprisingly, there are days when the mercury rises to over 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius) in the summer here. But for the past two weeks, the mercury has reached 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43 degrees Celsius) or higher each afternoon, a streak of extreme temperatures that could extend into next week, breaking a 1974 Phoenix record of 18 consecutive days. , say the forecasters.
The temperature is expected to reach 115 F (46 C) on Saturday and 116 (47 C) on Sunday, according to the National Weather Service.
It was a heat wave that paused for many Phoenix residents, even for summer-tested veterans like Shields, who says he’s been avoiding news reports about it.
“I don’t look at the weather. I can get freaked out that way,” said Shields, 67.
Climate Check, a real estate analysis group focused on climate, reports that between 1985 and 2005, Phoenix experienced about seven days a year above 109 F (43 C). By 2050, they estimate, Phoenix residents are expected to see an average of 44 days per year above this temperature.
Heat-related deaths in Phoenix’s Maricopa County have skyrocketed over the past few years, going from 338 in 2021 to 425 last year. So far in 2023, there have been 12 heat-related deaths, and 55 are still under investigation.
As the latest heatwave progressed, emergency services workers and a government office focused on helping the city deal with the heat distributed bottled water to the homeless and encouraged them to seek shelter at several public cooling stations.
Because the area doesn’t cool down as much as usual at night, some refrigeration plants are extending their hours, said David Hondola, director of the city’s Office of Heat Response and Mitigation.
This summer, he said, the city has nearly doubled the number of volunteers distributing water, hats, and sunscreen. With the heat compounded by the lack of shade trees, the city plans to offer grants to help people plant them.
Park closing
Hiking trails at nearby Piestewa Peak and Camelback Mountain are closed during the hottest hours of the day. Temperatures in the unshaded portions of the trails can reach 130 or 140 degrees (54 or 60 degrees Celsius), said Adam Waltz, a spokesman for Phoenix Parks and Recreation, as the sun beats and heat rises off the ground.
Waltz said the kids’ outdoor sports had already mostly wrapped up due to the harsh summers, ending around June and starting again in September.
Despite the trend toward more extremely hot days, Phoenix residents tend to ignore the heat, he said. They are simply used to dealing with it.
But the long-term warming trend — with nights that don’t cool off and asphalt and concrete that retain heat and can help raise temperatures — is troubling.
“People outside of Phoenix see 113 or 114 and gasp,” Waltz said. “We usually shelter around 118 or 119. But it’s very hot and dangerous.”
Overhead heat dome “off”
The heat wave that is spreading across a swath of the United States from Oregon, down the West Coast, to the southwest including Texas and into Alabama, said Zack Taylor, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland. unusual.
A mass of high-pressure air sits like a dome “parked” over the affected area and deflecting any rain or storms could provide relief for the 100 million people under heat warnings and alerts, Taylor said.
Phoenix gets some of the worst of it, with the air mass concentrated directly over the southwest.
“It was anchored there for days and days,” Taylor said. “This is not the usual summer heat.”
The weather service said that after reaching 115 F (46 C) on Saturday and 116 (47 C) on Sunday, temperatures are expected to remain above 110 F (43 C) through the next week.
Las Vegas is expected to record 115°F (47°C) on Saturday and 118°F (47°C) on Sunday; The agency said Death Valley could reach 127 (53 C) on Saturday and 130 (54 C) on Sunday.
Outside of Phoenix in Mesa on Friday, science intern Emily Loperto covered in long sleeves, pants and hiking boots collecting soil samples for a project studying the disease known as valley fever.
Her group, based at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, hit the road around 8 a.m., arriving in Mesa about two and a half hours later. This week they started at 6 am hoping to beat the heat. But by 8:30 in the morning, the temperatures were already over 100 (38 degrees Celsius).
It’s not just the heat from the sun that can be harmful. The Arizona Humane Society writes on their blog that asphalt temperatures can reach 160 degrees Fahrenheit (71 degrees Celsius) in the summer.
The sidewalks and streets are so hot that Cooper Burton’s dog walkers won’t let the animals out after 9 am
He said, “We don’t want our paws to burn.”