‘Oppressively hot’: Record heat wave engulfs western US | Weather news

More than 161 million people are under heat warnings as extreme weather triggers health warnings and fears.

The western United States continues to grapple with an oppressive heat wave that is believed to have killed at least seven people, authorities say, and prompted safety alerts across large swathes of the country.

The extreme heat wave has broken records across the West, while fueling further concerns about the impacts of the climate crisis.

On Wednesday, the city of Las Vegas, Nevada, was expected to surpass its previous record of four consecutive days above 46.1 degrees Celsius (115 degrees Fahrenheit).

This comes after the heat in the city broke the record of 46.6°C (116°F) in a single day in 2021, when it reached 48.8°C (120°F) on Sunday.

“This is the most extreme heat wave in the history of record keeping in Las Vegas since 1937,” said meteorologist John Adair, a three-decade veteran of the National Weather Service office in southern Nevada.

Local resident Alyse Sobosan said this July was the hottest in the 15 years she has lived in Las Vegas. “It’s oppressively hot,” she told the Associated Press news agency. “It’s like you can’t really live your life.”

Health authorities have emphasized that the heat can pose serious health risks.

“Even middle-aged people who are apparently healthy can suffer from heat illness when it is so hot that it is difficult for the body to cool down,” said Alexis Brignola, an epidemiologist with the Southern Nevada Health District.

The heat wave has also broken records in the northwestern states of Oregon and Washington in recent days, with temperatures reaching 39.4°C (103°F) in the city of Portland and 40.5°C (105°F) in Salem and Eugene.

The Oregon state medical examiner said Tuesday that the heat is believed to have caused at least six deaths.

A motorcyclist also died from heat exposure in California’s Death Valley National Park on Saturday as temperatures reached 53.3°C (128°F) there.

In both states, dry, hot conditions have also fueled wildfires, including a new fire in Oregon dubbed the Larch Creek Fire that quickly grew to more than 12 square kilometers (5 square miles) on Tuesday night.

In California, firefighters were battling at least 18 wildfires on Tuesday, including a 109-square-kilometer (42-square-mile) blaze that prompted evacuation orders for about 200 homes in the mountains of Santa Barbara County.

Rainfall from Hurricane Beryl

The heatwave comes after June marked the 13th consecutive month of record monthly temperatures across the world.

In total, more than 161 million people in the U.S. were placed under a heat warning on Tuesday.

The threat was particularly pronounced in the southern state of Texas, where more than a million people remained without power following Hurricane Beryl, with the city of Houston being particularly hard hit.

On Tuesday, a day after the storm made landfall, U.S. President Joe Biden approved a major disaster declaration, opening federal resources to the state.

“The biggest concern right now is the power outages and extreme heat that are impacting Texans,” Biden said in a statement. He cited the high rate of deaths from extreme heat in the U.S., which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates at about 1,220 per year.

“As everyone knows, extreme heat kills more Americans than all other natural disasters combined,” he said.

At least one person in Louisiana and six people in Texas died when Beryl made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane. It happened after the storm made landfall in the Caribbean, killing at least 11 people.