The western states have been sizzling for a week under triple-digit temperatures as a record-breaking heat wave dragged on to the region, with the brutal conditions expected to continue through Friday.
UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain said in a Twitter Spaces discussion on Tuesday, “This is essentially the worst September heat wave on record, definitely in Northern California. “By some standards, given its duration and its extreme magnitude, it could be one of the worst heatwaves on record, in any period, in any month.” there is.”
Jan Null, California meteorologist and owner of Golden Gate Weather Services, said:
Heat ends ‘suddenly’ as hurricane passes near Southern California
The heat was initially expected to abate on Thursday, but a rare hurricane approaching Southern California for the first time in 25 years spreads the extreme heat even further, bringing powerful winds to the already raging mountains. It can spur fires.
Temperatures could hit 100 degrees as far as San Diego and Orange County beaches on Friday. When the wind currents around the storm begin to interact with the mountains of Southern California, winds can reach speeds of 60 mph or more.
Then the heat will end “suddenly and abnormally” after Friday, according to the National Weather Service in Los Angeles.
The hurricane, or more specifically its surroundings, will bring significant amounts of rain to southern Arizona and eventually to central California and Nevada, according to the Weather Forecast Center. This means residents will transition from sweltering temperatures to excessive rainfall, which can cause streams and rivers to swell rapidly and trigger flash floods in Southern California and southwestern Arizona.
“Huge amounts of rain at once are never a good thing,” the WPC wrote Wednesday morning. “This is a common feature of slow-moving tropical storms.” “Therefore, the likelihood of flash floods is also increasing rapidly.”
According to CNN meteorologists Derek Van Dam and Judson Jones, Cay should remain a hurricane until it reaches about 250 miles from San Diego, and has only had four other storms since 1950. not.
San Diego’s National Weather Service wrote Wednesday that the storm “should reach a point about 150 miles southwest of San Diego Friday night as a weakening tropical storm.”
It will be the closest passage to Southern California since Hurricane Nora in 1997.
Wildfires explode as climate change makes heat waves more severe
Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA, noted that this week’s heatwave stretched from British Columbia to northern Mexico, and said the climate crisis is increasing the size of heat domes.
“Climate change has increased the frequency, intensity and duration of heatwaves and, in somewhat new evidence, the spatial extent of heatwaves,” Swain said.
Extreme heat also means fires burn hotter and longer.
At least four people have died in two different California wildfires, thousands displaced, homes burned and acres of land scorched in recent days.
Source: www.cnn.com
