June 2016 – PHOENIX (AZ) — In 120 degree temperatures, some airplanes might not takeoff. Power grids strain as the outside air keeps transmission lines from cooling. And for desert dwellers, a cold bottle of water and some shade can mean the difference between life and death. Parts of the U.S. Southwest, long accustomed to triple-digit temperatures, are preparing for a heat wave and, in Phoenix, officials are warning residents that the mercury may rise to 120, approaching Phoenix’s all-time record of 122.
“If we are going to 115 or 120, people need to realize they are really in a life-threatening situation if they don’t wet themselves down and drink water,” said Kevin Kalkbrenner, Phoenix’s director of homeland security and emergency management. Excessive heat contributed to 84 deaths in the state last year, officials said in Maricopa County, the state’s largest. Officials already confirmed this year’s first heat-related death – an elderly woman who died from heat exposure in her backyard in early June.
Dr. Cara Christ, director of the Arizona Department of Health Services, is warning residents to watch for signs of heat illness: thirst, red skin, cramping, exhaustion and a lack of sweat. The agency is telling local officials to prepare for an influx of heat-related illnesses. The Phoenix parks department is posting extra rangers at hiking trails warning visitors of the dangers and asking them to be off the trails by noon.
Arizona’s power companies are prepping extra maintenance crews and securing extra power to keep the cool air blowing, said Jacob Tetlow, general manager of operations with Arizona Public Service Co. Airlines will be monitoring temperatures as excessive heat can throw off performance calculations preventing planes from taking off, said Polly Tracey, spokeswoman for American Airlines.
Record May heat, from Alaska to India and especially in the oceans, put the global average temperature at 60.17 degrees Fahrenheit (15.65 degrees Celsius), according to NOAA. That’s 1.57 degrees (.87 degrees Celsius) above the 20th-century average, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. June is looking like it may be even worse. –ABC News
The Extinction Protocol 
It’s currently 105 degrees in Burbank, CA. I love it!
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I live two states over in Texas Panhandle, we had three days of 100+ days last week. Not unusual unless rest of the summer is in the 100’s. This will stress the crops and cattle operations in the area, food sources can be threaten.
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Dudes. . . a buddy of mine from out west told me once, “Yah, it gets hot, bro, but it’s a dry heat, you know? Like 110 in Air’zona ain’t nothin’ like 95 in Florida, where it’s so muggy it hurts to breathe, and the air gets so thick skeeters can’t fly, cuz they’re so soggy they just kinda buzz right out of the sky and squish to the ground or, if they hit you on their way down, they splash and then drown in their own puddle of condensate before they can bite you. It’s a lot worse in Florida, dude, trust me.” So I says, “I dunno, dude . . . every time I been to F-L-A, I mean, yeah, true, the air is thick and sticky like snot but the skeeters I met down their had gargantuan wings and swam right through it, and if they drowned on me it was cuz they hit a vein or somethin’. Besides, dry heat, dude, really? You think mummies are a NOT an ACCIDENT, like the Egyptians actually PLANNED to dessicate the god-men-pharoahs and turn ’em into some empty-husk shadow of their former pharoahnesses? Come on, you got to know that if it was on purpose-like, those embalmer-dudes would be terrified of meeting ’em in the afterlife cuz they can’t say ‘Oh, look, Tutan-hotep, what a splendid awful carcass we made for you!’ Otherwise, they NEVER woulda consented to being buried with them, EVER. Instead, they’d’a bounced for, I dunno, Ethiopia or Congo. Naw, dude, that dry heat sucked all the moisture out of them and shriveled them up all creepy and skeletal. Dry heat is death, dude.”
“‘Dessicate’, dude? Really?”
I nodded. “As opposed to ‘condensate’, yeah. Was illustrating my counter-point, dude.”
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portland oregon has allready broken all-time heat records a couple times this year too… and then of course those horrible fires way up in Alberta… looks like its going to be a long hot summer all over the west this year
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Ponder if: North Atlantic cooling suggests climate is about to change over much of the northern hemisphere. http://thewatchers.adorraeli.com
An article I read which might apply here. Repeat of history?
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