Central USA Faces Cooling Demand Surge from Heat Dome
(Bloomberg) -- Heat will bear down on Texas and the Great Plains within days, driving temperatures in Dallas above the 100-degree mark for the first time this year.
A dome of high pressure will build across the middle of the U.S., boosting demand for power to run air conditioners, said Jim Rouiller, lead meteorologist at the Energy Weather Group. The heat will expand eastward later next week into Chicago while a blanket of humidity will make it feel like 100 Fahrenheit (38 Celsius) from New York to Washington.
For Texans, “next week will be the hottest week they have had all summer long,” Rouiller said. “Cooling demand will be the highest we have seen all summer.”
The Lone Star state’s grid manager warned Thursday that electricity demand appears likely to break records next week, although he assured residents there will be enough power to go around.
The first day Dallas-Fort Worth usually reaches 100 is July 1, but this year that mark has yet to be reached, said Allison Prater, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Fort Worth. “We are quite a bit behind.”
We've been a bit spoiled with temperatures of late with cooler than normal conditions... this will make this weekend's heat a bit more dangerous! We are expecting high temperatures between 95-98° with heat indices near 105°.https://t.co/l6la3F3Xhm#HOUwx #TXwx #HeatSafety pic.twitter.com/T1j944a0Qb
— NWS Houston (@NWSHouston) July 23, 2021
With humidity, it will feel hotter across Texas through next week, Prater said. “It looks like the first half of next week is going to be the hotter days.”
The worst of the heat so far this summer has been centered in the drought-parched West, where successive waves set all-time records in Oregon, Washington state and even Canada. In the East, New York’s La Guardia Airport and Boston touched 100 degrees Dallas and Fort Worth.
The high pressure will likely be centered over Oklahoma, making conditions particularly brutal from Iowa to Arkansas, Rouiller said. Where the ground is parched from drought, the heat will be worse because more of the sun’s energy is available to bake the air.
“This is the hottest one so far for them, this is the dome of doom,” he said.
© 2021 Bloomberg L.P.
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