Free Republic

PORTLAND, Ore — The triple-digit heat sent shoppers hunting for air conditioners in the Portland-metro area Tuesday. “It's hot," said Richard Porter, who bought an air conditioner. "I need some air conditioning." "Real hot," said Jamie Minkus, who also bought an air conditioner. "I was standing in my bedroom last night. I'm not doing anything but, just, like sweating. And then I tried to sleep, and there was just like it was sleepless, is insufferable. I have an older home, so I just need like a portable AC to kind of just help me through to the sleep." "Oh, last...

California’s Independent System Operator (ISO) warned of high temperatures and increased electricity usage during the coming week as the grid operator prepares for tight conditions works to ensure adequate supply. In a notice released on Saturday, ISO said it is closely monitoring the power grid as widespread heat waves can cause supply shortages, with resources stretched thin across multiple Western states. ISO said energy supplies are sufficient to meet demand.

The current heat wave is being relentlessly blamed on increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but there is a much more plausible explanation, one that is virtually endorsed by two of the world’s leading scientific organizations. It turns out that levels of water vapor in the atmosphere have dramatically increased over the last year and a half, and water vapor is well recognized as a greenhouse gas, whose heightened presence leads to higher temperatures, a mechanism that dwarfs any effect CO2 may have.So why has atmospheric water vapor increased so dramatically? Because of a historic, gigantic volcanic eruption...

In February, as India endured its highest temperatures since 1901, Hillary Clinton visited the country to see firsthand the heat’s impact on female workers. In Rajasthan’s salt flats, she met with women harvesting salt, laborious work that involves raking up the tops of the salt ponds in the scorching heat of the desert. The women were pushing their start times to 4 a.m. to avoid the highest temperatures of the day. Yet, despite the record heat, future years are likely to be hotter still. “How are they going to keep going?” Clinton says. The former Secretary of State is the...

SAN ANTONIO, Texas – A one-day-old baby boy was found abandoned outside a Texas church for nearly 20 hours during the recent intense heat wave that saw temperatures soar far beyond triple digits. San Antonio police say a man and a woman were seen on camera about 1 a.m. on July 17 carrying a basket into the parking lot of Grissom Road Church, according to a Crime Stoppers report on Wednesday. The two then placed the basket by the back door of the church and left on foot. It wasn't until about 8:50 p.m. when a bicyclist noticed something "suspicious"...

Ah, summertime, when living is easy — those days when you spend time outdoors at the beach or the pool with a cold beverage and steaks or burgers on the grill, when you can travel and camp in a national park and take in nature's magnificent beauty. At least, that's the way it used to be, until the fascist far left decided to cynically take full advantage of the fact that it gets warm in the summer and cold in the winter (at least in the Northern Hemisphere).As is the case with other subjects, anti-liberty leftists love to lie with...

A record string of daily highs over 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43.3 degrees Celsius) in Phoenix ended Monday as the dangerous heat wave that suffocated the Southwest throughout July receded slightly with cooling monsoon rains. The historic heat began blasting the region in June, stretching from Texas across New Mexico and Arizona and into California’s desert. Phoenix and its suburbs sweltered more and longer than most, with several records including the 31 consecutive days of 110 degrees Fahrenheit-plus (43.4 degrees Celsius) weather. The previous record was 18 straight days, set in 1974. The streak was finally broken Monday, when the high...

The Northeast is bracing for two sets of weather extremes Thursday. On top of dangerous heat and humidity levels expected from Maine to Virginia early in the day, strong to severe storms are forecast just in time for the evening commute. “Serious winds could come along with these storms on Thursday afternoon,” said FOX Weather meteorologist Amy Freeze. “You’re looking at a Level 2 threat there from D.C. all the way up into Boston, where we’re looking at strong thunderstorms with potent winds above 60 mph.” A warm front will cross the Northeast Thursday, funneling the heat and humidity into...

As the extreme heat now baking the U.S. and other spots around the globe is being fueled by climate change, scientists say we are likely to see similarly hot summers in the future. But, while this type of heat is expected more often, that does not mean every summer will look like this year’s. “We have very high scientific confidence that the world will continue to experience summers like this one and in fact that the frequency of extreme heat will intensify further in response to further global warming,” said Noah Diffenbaugh, a professor of Earth system science at Stanford...

More than 40 million Americans in cities live with the impact of the “heat island” effect, in which city centers absorb more heat than surrounding areas, according to an analysis published Wednesday by the organization Climate Central. Cities are particularly susceptible to the heat island effect due to the replacement of natural vegetation with infrastructure like pavement, which absorbs more heat. This can mean the impact of climate change is more keenly felt by the 80 percent of Americans who live in cities, particularly in the recent waves of extreme heat.

Human smugglers have been taking advantage of record heat at the southern border to sneak migrants into the US, believing that there will be fewer border officers to stop them, according to officials. A record number of dead migrants have been recovered at the border as temperatures soared above 100 degrees for 36 consecutive days, the US Border Patrol said. “We are currently recording a significant number of migrant deaths in New Mexico due to the desert terrain and extreme heat,” the agency told the Border Report. In the summer, smugglers at the border normally avoid the hottest hours of...

It is so hot in Maricopa County, Arizona, that people are being brought into the emergency room with significant, sometimes life-threatening burns. For the past three or four weeks of this record heatwave, people have been burned just by falling on the ground. Construction workers gather together in the shade on July 11, 2023 in Austin, Texas. Record-breaking temperatures continue soaring as prolonged heatwaves sweep across the country's southwest. Heat can kill on the job, and these workers are dying “Summers are our busy season, so we anticipate that this sort of thing is going to happen. But this is...

Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., was roasted online after she tweeted Monday evening that the Earth broke a record for hottest day in 120,000 years. Omar, who used the tweet to call for a “climate emergency” declaration, added that the record for hottest day ever was broken on three separate days. However, Omar’s tweet was met with skepticism and was tagged with a Twitter community note casting doubt on the claim. “What was the temperature of the globe at 12pm GMT on July 1st, 116,539 BC?” former White House adviser Stephen Miller responded. “Is this satire?” added Republican Utah Senate candidate...

A United Nations agency warned of an increased risk of heart attacks and deaths as the northern hemisphere reeled Tuesday from heat waves. The World Meteorological Organization, the UN’s authority on weather and climate, said global temperatures have reached “unprecedented” levels within the last few weeks in a post on its website. According to the agency, multiple regions around the world including “North America, parts of Asia and across North Africa and the Mediterranean,” have seen temperatures above 40°C (104°F) for a “prolonged” period of time this week. “Heat is a rapidly growing health risk, due to burgeoning urbanization, an...

Phoenix is slated to break its heat record as the city approaches its 19th consecutive day of hitting 110 degrees or hotter in the area. Phoenix tied the record for the most consecutive days with a high temperature of 110 degrees or more on Monday at 18 days, which ties it with the record previously set in 1974, the Phoenix National Weather Service (NWS) said. Phoenix also broke its record for the highest overnight low temperature ever on Monday with a low of 95 degrees, which surpassed the 2009 record of 93 degrees. It was the eighth consecutive day of...

The grass isn’t always greener on the other side. Millions of Americans in the West and South will stay trapped under a dome of heat, while a system of storms is set to dunk the East with severe showers and flash flooding through the end of July. In a heatwave smothering the western third of the country through the end of the month, some spots are already reaching record high temperatures. A separate pattern will keep showering rain along the East Coast..

The southwest is dealing with a dangerous heat wave that could bring temperatures as high as 130 degrees in the desert, as 113 million Americans currently live under heat warnings. Blistering conditions will build Friday and throughout the weekend in the central and southern parts of the state, where many residents should prepare for the hottest weather of the year, the National Weather Service warned. Known as a 'heat dome' to meteorologists, the phenomenon is now set to persist through much of the month - scorching metros in Arizona, Nevada, and California in the process. Midday highs were mostly expected...

Here’s something coming without delays. New research warns that rapidly rising underground heat in subway stations is well on its way to becoming a “silent hazard” that will wreck transit systems and cause health issues for straphangers in the not-so-distant future. “Subsurface temperature rises can also cause transportation infrastructure and public health issues, such as overheated subway rails that force trains to slow down or stop to avoid incidents with significant economic costs associated with the delay of public transportation services,” warns Northwestern engineering professor Alessandro Rotta Loria in a study released Tuesday. Making matters worse, the hellishly hot platform...

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) announced a $20 million campaign Tuesday to protect Californians from extreme heat, just as the state’s southern residents were bracing for an extended spell of scalding temperatures. Heat Ready CA, a statewide multi-ethnic education initiative, provides planning information, emergency resources and strategies for staying safer during periods of intense heat, which the governor’s office described as “the deadliest form of climate-driven extreme weather.”

A California man died from extreme heat at Death Valley National Park amid the highest temperature recorded on Earth this year, park officials said. The 65-year-old man from San Diego was found dead in his vehicle on Monday morning, Abby Wines, a spokesperson for the park, told SFGATE. This came the day after Death Valley reached 126 degrees, the hottest temperature anywhere on the planet in 2023. A maintenance worker noticed the man’s vehicle just after 10 a.m. Monday about 30 yards away from North Highway, park officials said in a news release. The worker found the man unresponsive, prompting...