An “extremely dangerous” heat wave is expected to break daily temperature records across Western and Southern states through the holiday weekend, the National Weather Service warned Thursday.
The extreme heat comes as 28,000 people have been forced to evacuate their homes due to a wildfire raging in Northern California. The Thompson Fire in Oroville, about 65 miles north of Sacramento, has grown to 3,500 acres and was only 7 percent contained Wednesday night.
The temperature in Death Valley, California, was 50 degrees Celsius. In the most populated areas of the Golden State, the temperature was 37 degrees Celsius in Sacramento and 42 degrees Celsius in Bakersfield Thursday afternoon, according to the National Weather Service. Downtown Los Angeles and San Francisco were milder at 27 degrees Celsius and 24 degrees Celsius, respectively.
On Thursday, the southern United States was covered by heat advisories or warnings. In Birmingham, Alabama, temperatures were 93.5 degrees Fahrenheit, but the heat index — a measure of how hot it feels that takes into account humidity — was 100.5 degrees Fahrenheit around 5 p.m.
In Atlanta, the temperature was 93 degrees, in Shreveport, Louisiana, it was 97 degrees, and in Tulsa, Oklahoma, it was 98 degrees, with heat indices that put the temperature above 100 degrees in all of these locations. In the small town of Greenwood, Mississippi, the temperature was 97 degrees, but the temperature felt like 114 degrees.
In total, more than 100 million people spent Thursday under heat alert.
In the West, the situation will only get worse and more dangerous.
The National Weather Service is forecasting temperatures of 43 to 46 degrees in the California interior on Friday and Saturday. Parts of the desert southwest could reach 49 degrees.
Afternoon temperatures could reach the upper 90s and lower 100s in the Northwest and parts of the Great Basin, the weather service said.
The weather service said heat levels in the Mojave Desert, Sacramento Valley and San Joaquin Valley “could pose a risk to anyone if proper heat safety precautions are not followed.”
Las Vegas is expected to reach 117 degrees on Sunday and 118 on Monday, both higher than the city’s current all-time high of 116.
The weather service advised people to stay hydrated, out of direct sunlight and in air-conditioned buildings if possible.
Records have already been broken: in Livermore, at the eastern end of the California Bay Area, temperatures reached 110 degrees, while in San Rafael, in Marin County, California, temperatures reached 100 degrees.
Parts of Arizona, Nevada and Texas just experienced their hottest June on record.
