On Monday, Phoenix reached a miserable milestone: It was the first time since 1974 that it had 18 days in a row of 110-degree or higher temperatures. On Tuesday, it was poised to break the 49-year-old record and hit Day 19. The forecast called for a high of 115 degrees Fahrenheit.
People in the Southwest are used to brutal summers. Phoenix has many days that exceed 100 degrees. Water misters spritz patios, and neighborhoods and playgrounds light up in the midday sun. The monsoons usually pass with refreshing relief. But this stagnant summer is testing even the hardest, and putting many people at risk.
“It feels terrible,” said Mazey Christensen, 20, a scooper at Sweet Republic, an ice cream shop in Phoenix.
Business at the store was steady; On blistering days, customers tend to go for fruity flavors like watermelon sorbet and pineapple whip. But they usually visit the store later in the day when the sun is not too hot.
The temperatures were “extremely extreme,” said Matt Salerno, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Phoenix. “We’re talking 10 degrees above where they normally are.” The city set another heat record on Monday: eight days in a row where the overnight temperature never dropped below 90 degrees.
The heat is particularly brutal and unavoidable in the sprawling homeless encampment in central Phoenix known as “The Zone.” Phoenix is slowly clearing the tents block by block, but health care workers in the Zone say regular counts show the number of people living there remains the same or even grew.
There are almost no trees and, this July, people are suffering from second-degree burns after they pass out or fall asleep on the hot asphalt and sidewalks.
There are few sources of running water other than donated bottles and portable wash stations. So a spigot outside a shelter usually has a line of people pouring water over their heads and filling five gallon jugs to take back to their tents.
“You just hate it,” said Charles Outen, 49, who said he spent the summer hopscotching between cooling centers during the day and sleeping in local churches at night to escape the heat.
For much of the city and across the Southwest, the warming temperatures came with little relief: The rainy season — which usually brings cooling thunderstorms to the deserts of Arizona and New Mexico — is coming. later than usual.
And throughout the South, the heat is not only extreme, but also often abnormal.
This week, hot and humid conditions are expected to worsen along the Gulf Coast and throughout the Southeast, according to the Weather Service. Nationwide, about 100 million people are under heat alerts. And even parts of Northern states, including Michigan, New York and Vermont, recently broke daily temperature records.
In Palm Springs, Calif., a desert resort city in Southern California, residents and tourists are doing their best to stay cool as temperatures soar to 115 degrees.
Zach Stone, who lives in his car, said the heat inside the car was unbearable. To relieve herself, she went to the Demuth Community Center, where she worked on a puzzle in the gym.
“They have bread and water and they have vending machines and bathrooms, and that’s a big convenience,” he said.
The heat can be especially brutal for those already dealing with medical conditions such as cancer, diabetes, drug addiction and heart disease, said Dr. Jerald Moser, a co-director of the emergency department at Tucson Medical Center in Tucson, Ariz. , where the heat wave brought more patients than usual. It is estimated that the temperature there will exceed 110 degrees this week.
People without shelter or access to water are especially at risk, Dr. Moser said, adding that many of them ended up in emergency rooms after being found helpless on the ground, sometimes with secondary burns from scorching sidewalks.
“We’ve seen people pass out from full-blown heat stroke with a core body temperature of 104 degrees,” he said.
The persistent heat in the Southwest is the result of a high-pressure system that has been parked in the region for weeks. It’s been particularly stubborn this year, delaying cooling storms.
The monsoon schedule varies from one year to the next, said Michael Crimmins, a professor of environmental science at the University of Arizona in Tucson, so although it’s not yet clear whether climate change will to blame for the continuation of the heat wave, it has a possibility. making the daily high temperature even higher.
In Texas, this year’s warmth has prompted cotton crops, especially in the southern part of the state, to flower early. “It’s running ahead of schedule, which is bad,” said Josh McGinty, an agronomist with the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service whose office in Corpus Christi is surrounded by cotton fields.
Usually at this time of year, some bulbs start to open. However, Mr. McGinty said, “every fruit on the plant is open, and it shouldn’t be. The heat just stops the plants. They are in survival mode at this point. But even so, he said, it is better than last year, where the cotton plant suffered more because of the drought.
Farther east, residents of Southern states are bracing for a long season of hot and humid days. Heat indices, which measure how hot it feels outside while accounting for temperature and humidity, are expected to exceed 100 degrees this week in several cities including Jackson, Miss., Montgomery, Ala., and Tallahassee, Fla.
On Monday afternoon, Ralph Horton was driving east on Interstate 20 to his home in Tallapoosa, Ga., when he stopped in Vicksburg, Miss., for a break.
He was traveling from Texas, where he spent a few days. “Oh my gosh, it’s so hot,” he said.
On Monday, he stood at an overlook overlooking the Mississippi River, anticipating a different kind of heat — the kind that’s oppressive even when temperatures don’t reach triple digits. “Humidity is what kills this part of the country,” said Mr. Horton.
The area where he is standing is already under a heat advisory, with heat indexes expected to reach 110 degrees on Tuesday.
Reporting was contributed by Maggie Miles, Jack Healy and Sheryl Kornman.