America celebrated its 250th birthday this week by trying to cook itself alive. A weeklong heat wave has now killed at least 25 people, with 40 million Americans still under heat alerts as of Sunday, and Phoenix staring down a projected 114-degree high by midweek. Happy birthday, everyone. Please drink water.
The Numbers Are Bad and Getting Worse
NBC News reports that at least 18 record high temperatures were set on the Fourth of July alone, in cities including Washington D.C., Baltimore, Raleigh, Norfolk, and Atlantic City. Think about that for a second. Eighteen records. In one day. On a national holiday where millions of people were standing outside watching fireworks.
Of the 25 confirmed or suspected heat-related deaths, 22 were in New Jersey alone, spread across 10 counties, according to the state's Department of Health. Two more deaths were reported in Hinds County, Mississippi, and one in Cook County, Illinois. In New York City, more than 378 people visited emergency rooms for heat-related illness, per the city's Health Department. And the week isn't over.
What It Actually Feels Like Outside Right Now
Heat index values, meaning what the temperature actually feels like to the human body rather than what a thermometer technically reads, are hitting 100 to 105 degrees Sunday across Philadelphia, Washington, Baltimore, Raleigh, Charleston, and Jacksonville, according to NBC News. The heat index is the number that matters. It's the one that kills people.
Out west, the situation is grimmer. NBC News reports that extreme heat watches cover parts of Arizona and California, including Phoenix and Tucson, running from Tuesday through Thursday. Daytime highs in Phoenix could reach 114 degrees. To be clear: 114 degrees is a temperature at which you can get a first-degree burn from touching metal that has been sitting in the sun. People live there. People work outside there.
Now Add Storms on Top of All That
Because why not. Saturday's storms produced more than 540 damaging wind gust reports across the central and eastern United States, according to the National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center, as cited by NBC News. The strongest gusts clocked in at 92 mph in Norman, Oklahoma, and 87 mph in Suffolk County, New York. For reference, a Category 1 hurricane starts at 74 mph.
Sunday is not offering much relief. NBC News reports that 25 million people are under storm alerts across the Plains, Southeast, and mid-Atlantic, with conditions favorable for wind gusts over 70 mph and quarter-sized hail in the Philadelphia-Washington-Baltimore corridor. Travel delays are expected Sunday afternoon and evening at major airports in Dallas, Nashville, Chicago, Cincinnati, Charlotte, Atlanta, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington. So if you're flying home from a holiday weekend, buckle in. Literally.
Flash Flooding Threat Through Monday
The misery continues into the work week. NBC News reports that through Monday, 34 million people from Delaware to Connecticut are under flood alerts. Slow-moving storms packed with moisture are raising the risk of localized flash flooding, particularly across the mid-Atlantic.
Rainfall rates could hit 2 inches per hour, with total accumulations of 2 to 8 inches possible through Monday, according to NBC News. Urban flash flooding is a specific concern in Philadelphia, New York, and Hartford, Connecticut. So the sequence here is: record heat, severe thunderstorms, then flash floods. It's less of a holiday weekend and more of a stress test.
Relief Is Coming, Eventually
There is, technically, a light at the end of the tunnel for the East Coast. NBC News reports that temperatures will begin to drop this week, with highs generally settling into the 70s to low 90s across the region. That is a meaningful improvement from what we've been dealing with.
The Southwest is a different story. That 114-degree watch in Phoenix doesn't break until Thursday, and "extreme heat watch" is the kind of phrase that tends to get normalized right up until it kills somebody. The pattern across all of this, from the deaths concentrated in New Jersey to the ER visits in New York to the watches in Arizona, is that extreme heat is not a weather inconvenience. It is a public health emergency that we keep treating like a weather inconvenience.
The Dingo Take
Here's the thing about 25 heat deaths over a single holiday week: that number is almost certainly an undercount. Heat deaths are notoriously difficult to attribute, slow to be confirmed, and disproportionately concentrated among people who don't have air conditioning, don't have someone checking on them, and don't show up in the news. Twenty-two of those 25 deaths were in New Jersey. New Jersey. Not Phoenix, not Death Valley. New Jersey in July.
We have spent the last several years watching the political class argue about whether any of this is real while the summers get longer and the record highs pile up. Eighteen temperature records on the Fourth of July is not a coincidence, it's not a fluke, and it's not something that requires a panel of experts to explain. The air is hotter. More people are dying from it. And the forecast calls for more of the same.
The storms and flooding on top of all this are almost secondary at this point, except they're not, because 34 million people are still under flood alerts through Monday. The part of the country that just sweated through a lethal holiday weekend is now also going to deal with flash flooding and 70-mph wind gusts. There is no good segue here. It is just bad, stacked on more bad, and the only people surprised by this are the ones who chose not to pay attention.
