As I write this, a heatwave is devastating the Pacific Northwest, with nearly sixty locations breaking their all-time heat records, including Canada’s national heat record, reaching a peak of 118.2 degrees (F), almost a full fifty degrees warmer than average. It is so hot that, according to the BBC, “even a swimming pool [was] deemed too hot to function.”
New England, meanwhile, suffers under a heatwave of our own. The current temperature is 89° in the center of my southwestern Vermont village. The current “feels like” temperature, which measures ambient air temperature, relative humidity, and wind speed to approximate what the weather feels like on bare skin, is 102°. The National Weather Service has issued a heat advisory, cautioning residents to stay out of the sun (ideally in an air-conditioned room) and check up on relatives and neighbors.
Bob Williams, the owner of my local hardware store, moved his air-conditioners to the front of his store and offered his mid-range machines at a sale price. He says the sale is to clear out his overstock, but Bob has a history of going above and beyond for his customers when the weather turns against us. When winter storms hit or the river floods, he’ll sleep in the store to make sure his customers can get the tools they need to survive.
The heatwave in the Pacific Northwest has been caused, the weather professionals tell us, by a heat dome, a vast high-pressure zone that settles over a region like a cover on a pot, causing the heat to swelter beneath it, driving out the clouds and pushing up the temperature.
Meanwhile, the heatwave in New England comes from the Bermuda high, a near-constant high-pressure system usually centered over Bermuda. The system “meanders west and east through the summer,” sometimes moving as far west as Michigan. When it comes into contact with New England, heat and humidity soar, making our days hot and sticky like they are now.
As you can see, Pacific Northwest heat domes and New England heatwaves dominate my brain at the moment. I don’t do well in the heat, and the thought of 118.2° scares the shit out of me; writing this post has me on the edge of a panic attack.
Scientists predict that human-caused climate change is likely to increase the number of “extreme summer weather events” in the northern hemisphere by nearly fifty percent before the end of this century.
Examples of these events include:
- 2003 European heatwave (+70,000 dead)
- 2010 Russian heatwave and fires (+55,000 dead)
- 2010 Pakistan flood (+20 million affected)
- 2011 Oklahoma/Texas heatwave and drought (43 consecutive days exceeding 100°)
Here in Vermont, climatologists predicted in 2014 that “the number of hot days reaching 87°F or warmer…[will] increase from about six per year to more than 20 per year.” But here in 2021, we’ve already had six days reaching 87° or warmer, and it’s not even July yet (last July had seven days hitting 87° or warmer).
A heatwave during this same week in 2018 killed four people in Vermont. While my region saw a high of 88° that week, temperatures reached 115° about sixty miles north, killing a 79-year-old woman in Essex Junction and cooking a 57-year-old woman and her two dogs in their mobile home.
Along with the heat, climatologists expect increased precipitation for Vermont, with less snow and more rain (especially in the winter). They also anticipate floods and severe storms to have an increased impact on the state and extreme rainfall to become more frequent and intense.
Because of Vermont’s location in the jet stream, climatologists also expect more “blocking” weather patterns. A blocking weather pattern “occurs when centers of high pressure and/or low pressure set up over a region in such a way that they prevent other weather systems from moving through.”
One example of a blocking pattern is the polar vortex that now seems to regularly settle over the midwest and northeastern parts of the United States. Disruptions to the polar vortex caused a coldwave in 2014 that dropped my local temperature to -17° and caused sub-zero averages for three days straight. The coldwave introduced the term “polar vortex” to the general public, and the phrase became so popular that meteorologists complained about its misuse.
I can only hope that the blocking patterns that settle over Vermont remain wintry in their origin. I can deal with the extreme cold of a polar vortex or the heavy, wet snowfall of a warmer winter.
But I know I can’t deal with increased heat, and heaven forbid we get a blocking pattern like a heat dome.
I know the climate is changing. I know it will get less fit for humans. But man, I can’t stand the heat.