There are sizzling summers. After which there’s the summer time of 2023.
For large parts of the USA, the previous few months have been brutally sizzling — usually for weeks on finish. Warmth information had been set throughout the nation, and far of the southern tier spent this summer time within the grips of a very unrelenting stretch of warmth and humidity.
Seven states within the South and the West, together with Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, Florida, New Mexico, Arizona and Washington, had one in every of their hottest summers in additional than 70 years, in line with an NBC Information evaluation of knowledge from the Nationwide Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Nationwide Facilities for Environmental Info. Of these states, Louisiana had its hottest summer time in seven a long time.
Warmth waves are anticipated to turn into extra frequent and extra intense because the planet warms. Research have additionally proven that excessive warmth occasions are lasting longer because of local weather change.
The planet notched its hottest summer time on document “by a big margin,” in line with knowledge launched final week by the European Union’s Copernicus Local weather Change Service. In June, July and August — the months that make up “meteorological summer time” — Earth’s common floor air temperature was about 1.2 levels Fahrenheit hotter than the long-term common.
Within the U.S., a slew of warmth information have been toppled this summer time. Phoenix set a document with 31 straight days at or above 110 F, obliterating the earlier document of 18 days. Greater than 50 counties in Texas, principally within the southern portion of the state, skilled their hottest summer time in additional than a century of record-keeping.
However what was it actually wish to reside in such oppressively sizzling situations? NBC Information talked to individuals in Arizona and Texas, two of the states that had been hit the toughest by excessive warmth this summer time, about how hovering temperatures affected their day-to-day lives. Right here’s what they mentioned.
