Latest / DEEP INSIGHT / Record heat sweeps US during July 4 holiday weekend

Transcript

Record heat sweeps US during July 4 holiday weekend · DEEP INSIGHT

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Millions of Americans are criss crossing the United States to
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: visit friends and family this Fourth of July weekend, as
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: a country is gripped by a heat wave just as
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: it celebrates two hundred and fifty years of independence. Temperatures
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: are expected to break records across large parts of the country.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Some communities are even canceling Fourth of July celebrations, leaving
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: people to find creative ways to cope.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Hell, you know she's going to leave me.
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: Wildern A heat week is speaking Times Square, sending tourists
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: and New Yorkers to missing stations. It's a different heat.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: We go out, we hope three vacation a lot, so
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: we're in all different countries. But this is a different
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: It's a different than Minomia. He came from Colorado. It's
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: much more humid here, so it's harder to tolerate this weather.
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: While some chose to stay home, for many workers and
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: office goers they had little choice.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: It's about one hundred and two degree, it feels like
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: The poor concrete this makes it worse.
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: Washington is also sweltering and just cotching. Temperatures ridiculous.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: When I got in the car. It felt like I
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: almost burned myself.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Like it was bad.
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: Organizations have been extending support for vulnerable residents. In Pennsylvania,
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: more than one hundred people were treated for heat related
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: illnesses after gathering to watch a historic steam locomotive. Authorities
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: declared a mass casualty incident as temperatures reached around forty
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: one degrees celsius. Heat is bearing down on the eastern
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: US heading into the long fourth of July weekend. The
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: high temperatures may force some to alter their Independence day plans.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: Let's explore this with Matthew Capucci. He's a senior meteorologist
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: with my Radar Weather joins us from Washington, DC. Welcome
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: back to thew Matt, All that was in fahrenheit and
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: all temperatures in fahrenheit sound high to European ears. We
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: here have seen a succession of record breaking temperatures in
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: the last few weeks. It looks like you're seeing a
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: similar picture there.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely, it's our turn right now. We're seeing temperatures
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: between thirty eight and forty degrees celsius up and down
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: the Eastern seaboard, which is about i'd say five to
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: ten degrees above average celsius, which doesn't sound like much,
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: but that takes ordinary summertime heat and pushes it into
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: record territory. You know, summers will always be hot, winters
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: will always be cool, and Christmas will always fall in December.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: But when you kind of tilt the scales, thanks in
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: large parts of human induced climate change, you're more likely
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: to see these extremes that much more often, especially when
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: you already have an exceptional events. My other concern too,
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: overnight lows aren't that low at all. Tonight, for example,
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: here in the nation's capital will only dip to about
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: twenty six or twenty seven celsius. That's not that low
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: at all, and so you don't really have that nighttime
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: cool down period for the body to sort of rid
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: itself of heat. That exacerbates ongoing heat stress and that
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: really increases the risk of heat related illnesses, especially for
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: those who don't have access to cooling.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: And that's the same a picture that we've been seeing
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: here in Europe. High temperatures that don't decline that much
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: at night, So what's going on there?
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: I think that's a really big concern of mind. We
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: have so much moisture in the air. When you have
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: a really humid air mass, the air just can't really
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: get rid of heat that easily. It traps that heat,
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: and so you get those warm temperatures overnight too. That's
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: a double edged sword because during the daytime with that
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: extreme moisture in place, In fact, we have roughly a
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: shot glass worth or half a shot glass worth of
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: water in every cubic meter of atmosphere. All that moisture
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: leads to increasing heat stress during the day. So it's
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: feeling like fifty plus in places, but at night you
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: hold on to that heat, and so that just really
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: worsens heat stress even more. I think a lot of
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: people underestimate the role of hot overnights. You know, we
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: see cooling shelters open during the daytime during the peak heating,
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: but a lot of those shelters close overnight. If I
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: had my way, they would be open twenty four to
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: seven because many heat deaths occurred during those overnight hours
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: because people just can't cool down no matter what time
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: of day it is.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: Okay, so million as are getting ready to hit the
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: road to be with family and friends for Fourth of
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: July celebrations. How's this weather likely to affect those travel plans.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: It'll be pretty iffy in some parts of the country.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: Aircraft that require longer to take off due to the
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: heat may actually be delayed here in the nation's capital
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: due to completely different reason. It's the fifth or two
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: hundred fiftieth rather anniversary of the United States. A number
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: of airports have been shut down due to air shows
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: planned for the holiday, so a lot of folks are
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: driving instead or taking trains. I think the biggest thing
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: people need to remember, though, is that with all the
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: outdoor plans, they need to recognize the signs and symptoms
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: of both heatstroke and heat exhaustion. The other thing I'll
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: say too, this extreme heat is leading to an increased
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: risk of severe weather. We've already seen very strong severe
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: thunders storms right across the northern side the northern periphery
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: of the US, on the northern side of this heat dome,
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: so to speak. In fact, on Monday, we had a
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: wind gust to two hundred and ten kilometers per hour
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: from severe thunderstorms in South Dakota. More windy storm complexes
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: could arrive here in Washington, d C. During the Fourth
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: of July holiday, so a lot to track in the
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: weather apartment.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: Okay, so hearing you're the argument about climate change is
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: nargely settled, right, we're presuming that the extreme temperatures you're
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: experiencing there are as a result of El Nino plus
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: climate change. What we don't get is why this is
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: still so contentious over there, because you see people are sweltering,
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: you see increased incidents of death because of the heat,
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: but people are still not convinced that man made climate
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: change is behind this.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: So I see three different reasons for that. Number One,
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: Here in the United States, a lot of our record
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: temperatures were actually set back in the nineteen thirties, and
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: so people say, hey, it was way hotter back then,
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: when climate change wasn't really as bad a thing. The
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: reason we saw records back in the nineteen thirties was
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: because we had something called the dust Bowl, a crazy drought,
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: and it was super dry and it made it easier
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: to get record temperatures. But it's like comparing apples to oranges,
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: with so much more moisture in the atmosphere, we hold
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: way more heat energy these days, and so people don't
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: understand why the nineteen thirties were hotter, or even though
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: climate change is more severe. Now. The other thing I'll
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: say too, I think Americans have an uncomfortable relationship with
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: both science and the media, and so if they're getting
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: their information from scientists in the media, like me, they
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: had this inherent distrust. That distrust of science in the
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: media was worsened by the COVID nineteen pandemic. So interestingly,
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: I think a lot of these sort of misconceptions and
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: preconceived notions that Americans have stem as a result of
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: both media bias in the US, scientific literacy in the
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: United States, and old, old temperature records that they don't
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: fully understand. But I think you're right, Americans honestly struggle
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: with liter see when it comes to climate change.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: Okay, well, we'll always trust you. Thanks for that, Meteorologist
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: Matthew Capucci.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: Thank you.