A A relentless heat wave That the US gained more last week is likely to continue and expand this weekend.
Millions of Americans — especially those along the Interstate 95 corridor — are under heat advisories or warnings as the sweltering heat is expected to reach record temperatures in some areas. Humidity will reach heat index values into the mid-100s in some places.
National Weather Service (NWS) forecasters said Saturday that high temperatures will be in the mid-90s from the upper central and southern Plains to the East Coast.
“These temperatures remain the most anomalous and dangerous early summer for the Midwest/Ohio Valley east to the Mid-Atlantic,” it said.
Carolyn Custer / AP
Thani Freeman, director of the Washington Department of Parks and Recreation, told CBS News that they are asking people to be aware of how hot and dangerous it can be and to avoid overheating by staying inside or going to cooling centers.
“Heat exhaustion is real. That’s why we want our residents to be protected from extreme heat,” Freeman said. “Drink lots of water, wear loose clothing, wear a hat, stay outside. Avoid the heat of the sun as much as possible during these peak hours.”
The relentless heat expands
Millions of residents across the country have had their lives disrupted by days of unusually high temperatures.
In Michigan, utility crews from several states worked feverishly Friday to restore power to thousands of customers in suburban Detroit, two days after a powerful storm knocked out power, leaving residents stranded amid a heat wave expected to last into Saturday.
Stephen Sen/AP
About 12,000 homes and businesses were without power Friday afternoon in Oakland County, a suburban area north of Detroit that was hit hard by Wednesday night’s storm, which knocked out power to about 75,000 homes and businesses at its peak, said Brian Kalka, vice president of distribution operations for DTE Energy. .
Between 500 and 600 crews at utilities in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois worked with about 1,000 DTE Energy workers and another 1,000 tree-trimming contractors to restore power amid the heat. Kalka said the utility’s goal is to restore power to all customers by late Friday or early Saturday.
Utility crews worked 16-hour shifts to restore power and were encouraged to deal with the heat by taking more breaks as they wore jeans, long sleeves, rubber gloves and hard hats for the job, Kalka said.
“They work in very, very difficult conditions,” he said.
In Idaho, officials said two people in their 60s died of heat-related causes — the state’s first heat-related deaths of the year. Health officials did not release additional information Friday about the victims, including where they died.
This month’s extreme daytime temperatures were 35 times more likely and 2.5 degrees F (1.4 degrees C) hotter due to warming from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas—in other words, human-caused climate change. according to this world weather attribution, A collection of scientists conducting rapid climate attribution studies that have not been reviewed.
Flooding is a concern amid the heat
Extreme heat wasn’t the only weather-related problem in some states.
Scattered showers and thunderstorms that have caused flooding in parts of New England and the Great Lakes will continue Saturday with “plenty of moisture,” increasing the chance of locally heavy rain, the NWS said.
Several small-town tourist meccas in northern Minnesota have been inundated again by flooding after torrential rains earlier this week closed major roads and left a costly trail of damage.
To the west, several South Dakota campers who had gathered to watch the now-cancelled race at Husset Speedway near Sioux Falls were rescued by boat Friday, Minnehaha County Sheriff’s Deputy Jeff Gromer said. No one was injured.
Iowa’s governor sent helicopters to a small town to evacuate people from flooded homes Saturday.
At 2 a.m., sirens sounded in Rock Valley, Iowa, home to 4,200 people, where people from hundreds of homes were told to evacuate as the town could no longer cope with the rain that lashed the region. The city lacked water because the wells were unusable.
“We have National Guard helicopters coming in where people are on rooftops — literally rooftops or second floors because their first floor is completely flooded,” said Mayor Kevin Van Otterloo.
“We’ve had so much rain here,” he said. “We had four inches in an hour and a half last night. Our land can’t take it anymore.”
Sioux County Sheriff via AP
Governor Kim Reynolds ordered a Declaration of disaster for Sioux County, which includes Rock Valley. Drone video There were no streets posted by the local sheriff, just rooftops and treetops above the water.
The highest chance of potentially significant heavy precipitation will be along the Upper Great Lakes and Upper Mississippi Valley and parts of southern New England, NWS forecasters said.
At the same time, temperatures will rise in the western and central parts of the US. In much of the Pacific Northwest, the Great Basin and California, temperatures will be in the mid-90s to the low 100s on Saturday.
“Monsoon-like conditions” prompt evacuations
Temperatures will continue to be hot in New Mexico and Nevada, but “monsoon-like conditions” will persist across the region. Highs will be in the mid-100s through the weekend, with showers and thunderstorms threatening locally heavy rain.
Heavy rains and flash flood warnings prompted New Mexico officials to order mandatory evacuations, setting up shelters for those displaced.
Up to 2 inches (5 centimeters) of rain fell late Friday night, with an additional 1.5 inches (3.8 centimeters) expected overnight, the weather service said.
There was flooding blocking many roads on the north and west sides of Las Vegas, the weather service said.
