PHOENIX: A dangerous heat summer forming up in the US West, with heat suspected in dozens of new deaths, including a pensioner in Oregon, a motorcyclist in Death Valley, California and a 10-year-old boy who fell while hiking with his family on the Phoenix Trail.
Heat is the main culprit weather-related fatalities country. But because of the investigation of the suspect hot death can take a month, and the mishmash of methods used by the district to count people, it is not known exactly how many people died in the new heat wave since July 1.
There are indications that this has been a deadly two weeks.
“This is just a harbinger of things to come,” Jollen Russell, a climate scientist at the University of Arizona in Tucson, said Friday. “Floods, droughts, forest fires, heat waves, hurricanes, thunderstorms: We have enabled all these extreme weather events with the extra carbon dioxide we put into the atmosphere.”
Here are some things to know:
Where the most deaths there are nineteen deaths being investigated for possible heat-related causes in Northern California Santa Clara County, where this month’s heat wave pushed the temperature to a low of three digits. The medical examiner’s office reported that four of the dead were homeless and nine were over 65.
At least 16 people are believed to have died in Oregon’s record high temperatures, mostly in the Portland metro area.
There have been nine confirmed heat-related deaths this year in Clark County, Nevada, which includes Las Vegas, the county coroner’s office said.
Some of the recent deaths under investigation in Arizona involved children, including a 2-year-old girl who was left alone in the hot vehicle outside of Tucson and a 4-month-old who died after becoming ill while on a boat in Lake Havasu.
How hot it has been Records for high temperatures have been broken throughout the western states this month, with Palm Springs, California, reaching 124 Fahrenheit (51.1 Celsius) on July 5 and Las Vegas registering an all-time high of 120 F (48.8 C) on the 7th of July.
Las Vegas baked in a record seven consecutive days of 115 F (46.1 C) or more during the recent heat wave, nearly doubling the old mark of four consecutive days set in July 2005, the National Weather Service said. The city has seen at least 18 heat records since June 1.
California’s Death Valley experienced a high of 129 F (53.8 C) on July 7, setting a daily record since 2007, according to the National Weather Service. The high in Phoenix reached 115 F (46.1 C) on Wednesday, breaking daily records set in 1958 and 1934.
Portland, Oreg set a new daily high record five days in a row until Tuesday, when it reached 104 F (40 C).
Why the death toll is uncertain. But some counties in the US Southwest are doing a better job than most.
Pima County, Arizona’s second most populous county and home to Tucson, last year began including heat-related deaths in a new online dashboard. Maricopa County, home to Phoenix, America’s hottest big city, has been tracking heat-related deaths for years. Clark County, Nevada, home to Las Vegas, now also identifies the death heat as a contributing factor.
But counting heat-related deaths in most jurisdictions is inconsistent. Death investigations in some places are conducted by medical examiners, usually doctors trained in forensic pathology. In other areas, the coroner may be the elected sheriff, such as in Orange County, California. In some small counties in Texas, a justice of the peace can determine the cause of death.
Even the numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are often a few years old in their reports and give an incomplete picture because they depend on information from death certificates, which are drawn from local, state, tribal and regional databases.
An analysis of CDC data this year found death certificates for more than 2,300 people who died in the U.S. last summer cited the effects of extreme heat, the highest number in 45 years of records. Doctors, public health experts and meteorologists say that’s only a fraction of the real number.
Why the confirmation lags It can take pathologists months in some cases to determine if the death was heat-related.
Unlike suicide by hanging or homicide caused by a bullet to the head, heat-related deaths are not easy to determine. It may take weeks, or even months, of toxicology testing to determine if heat was a factor.
There are many ambiguities for researchers to wade through when the body was found in a hot apartment the day after death. While it may have been very hot when the person was found, it is impossible to know how hot it was inside the house at the time of death.
Toxicology tests also take a long time to determine substance use, such as alcohol or street drugs.
Because of the delay, it wasn’t until this spring that the Maricopa County Department of Public Health was able to release a final tally of 645 heat-related deaths for 2023. Those deaths include heat as a secondary factor, such as heart disease. attack provoked by high temperature.
Forecast Temperatures in Portland, Oregon, have cooled, but they are expected to warm up slightly over the weekend with highs in the low 90s, extending south to Salem and Eugene.
The National Weather Service in Phoenix said the extreme heat warning was forecast to continue through Saturday, with highs reaching 111 F (43.8 C) before dropping below 110 F (43.3 C) on Sunday and next week.
After 10 days under a severe heat threat, Las Vegas is expected to see slightly cooler weather over the weekend. Still, highs next week are forecast to remain above normal, ranging from 110 to 112 F (43.3 to 44.4 C), the National Weather Service said.
And summer isn’t over yet.
Heat is the main culprit weather-related fatalities country. But because of the investigation of the suspect hot death can take a month, and the mishmash of methods used by the district to count people, it is not known exactly how many people died in the new heat wave since July 1.
There are indications that this has been a deadly two weeks.
“This is just a harbinger of things to come,” Jollen Russell, a climate scientist at the University of Arizona in Tucson, said Friday. “Floods, droughts, forest fires, heat waves, hurricanes, thunderstorms: We have enabled all these extreme weather events with the extra carbon dioxide we put into the atmosphere.”
Here are some things to know:
Where the most deaths there are nineteen deaths being investigated for possible heat-related causes in Northern California Santa Clara County, where this month’s heat wave pushed the temperature to a low of three digits. The medical examiner’s office reported that four of the dead were homeless and nine were over 65.
At least 16 people are believed to have died in Oregon’s record high temperatures, mostly in the Portland metro area.
There have been nine confirmed heat-related deaths this year in Clark County, Nevada, which includes Las Vegas, the county coroner’s office said.
Some of the recent deaths under investigation in Arizona involved children, including a 2-year-old girl who was left alone in the hot vehicle outside of Tucson and a 4-month-old who died after becoming ill while on a boat in Lake Havasu.
How hot it has been Records for high temperatures have been broken throughout the western states this month, with Palm Springs, California, reaching 124 Fahrenheit (51.1 Celsius) on July 5 and Las Vegas registering an all-time high of 120 F (48.8 C) on the 7th of July.
Las Vegas baked in a record seven consecutive days of 115 F (46.1 C) or more during the recent heat wave, nearly doubling the old mark of four consecutive days set in July 2005, the National Weather Service said. The city has seen at least 18 heat records since June 1.
California’s Death Valley experienced a high of 129 F (53.8 C) on July 7, setting a daily record since 2007, according to the National Weather Service. The high in Phoenix reached 115 F (46.1 C) on Wednesday, breaking daily records set in 1958 and 1934.
Portland, Oreg set a new daily high record five days in a row until Tuesday, when it reached 104 F (40 C).
Why the death toll is uncertain. But some counties in the US Southwest are doing a better job than most.
Pima County, Arizona’s second most populous county and home to Tucson, last year began including heat-related deaths in a new online dashboard. Maricopa County, home to Phoenix, America’s hottest big city, has been tracking heat-related deaths for years. Clark County, Nevada, home to Las Vegas, now also identifies the death heat as a contributing factor.
But counting heat-related deaths in most jurisdictions is inconsistent. Death investigations in some places are conducted by medical examiners, usually doctors trained in forensic pathology. In other areas, the coroner may be the elected sheriff, such as in Orange County, California. In some small counties in Texas, a justice of the peace can determine the cause of death.
Even the numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are often a few years old in their reports and give an incomplete picture because they depend on information from death certificates, which are drawn from local, state, tribal and regional databases.
An analysis of CDC data this year found death certificates for more than 2,300 people who died in the U.S. last summer cited the effects of extreme heat, the highest number in 45 years of records. Doctors, public health experts and meteorologists say that’s only a fraction of the real number.
Why the confirmation lags It can take pathologists months in some cases to determine if the death was heat-related.
Unlike suicide by hanging or homicide caused by a bullet to the head, heat-related deaths are not easy to determine. It may take weeks, or even months, of toxicology testing to determine if heat was a factor.
There are many ambiguities for researchers to wade through when the body was found in a hot apartment the day after death. While it may have been very hot when the person was found, it is impossible to know how hot it was inside the house at the time of death.
Toxicology tests also take a long time to determine substance use, such as alcohol or street drugs.
Because of the delay, it wasn’t until this spring that the Maricopa County Department of Public Health was able to release a final tally of 645 heat-related deaths for 2023. Those deaths include heat as a secondary factor, such as heart disease. attack provoked by high temperature.
Forecast Temperatures in Portland, Oregon, have cooled, but they are expected to warm up slightly over the weekend with highs in the low 90s, extending south to Salem and Eugene.
The National Weather Service in Phoenix said the extreme heat warning was forecast to continue through Saturday, with highs reaching 111 F (43.8 C) before dropping below 110 F (43.3 C) on Sunday and next week.
After 10 days under a severe heat threat, Las Vegas is expected to see slightly cooler weather over the weekend. Still, highs next week are forecast to remain above normal, ranging from 110 to 112 F (43.3 to 44.4 C), the National Weather Service said.
And summer isn’t over yet.
