logo
Hundreds of Thousands Told To Avoid Sun: 'Deadliest Weather Phenomenon'

Hundreds of Thousands Told To Avoid Sun: 'Deadliest Weather Phenomenon'

Newsweek10 hours ago
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content.
Hundreds of thousands of people have been advised to stay out of the sun this week due to "dangerously hot conditions" forecast in two states.
The National Weather Service (NWS) issued extreme heat warnings for large swathes of southern Arizona and southeast California from Tuesday morning until Thursday evening.
Temperatures are forecast to reach 119 degrees Fahrenheit in parts, and the warnings cover major urban areas including Phoenix.
A heat wave in the Death Valley National Park, California, in July 2024.
A heat wave in the Death Valley National Park, California, in July 2024.
Ty ONeil/AP
Why It Matters
The NWS warned there will be a major heat risk in affected areas, and that overexposure to the sun can lead to heat cramps, exhaustion and eventually heat stroke.
"Don't underestimate the heat! It is the deadliest weather phenomenon in the USA," it said. "An extreme heat warning means that a period of very hot temperatures, even by local standards, will occur. Actions should be taken to lessen the impact of the extreme heat.
"Drink plenty of fluids, stay in an air-conditioned room, stay out of the sun, and check up on relatives and neighbors."
It added: "Do not leave young children and pets in unattended vehicles. Car interiors will reach lethal temperatures in a matter of minutes."
What To Know
In Arizona, the extreme heat warnings are in effect from 10 a.m. on Tuesday until 8 p.m. on Thursday. Counties impacted by the warnings include: Yuma, La Paz, Yavapai, Maricopa, Gila, Pinal, Pima, Graham, Greenlee, Coconino.
In parts of Phoenix, home to around 1.65 million people, temperatures could reach 117 degrees Fahrenheit.
In California, extreme heat warnings are in force from 10 a.m. on Wednesday until 8 p.m. on Thursday. Counties impacted by the warnings include: San Diego, Imperial, Riverside and San Bernardino.
In its warning, the NWS said: "Take extra precautions if you work or spend time outside. When possible, reschedule strenuous activities to early morning or evening. Know the signs and symptoms of heat exhaustion and heat stroke. Wear lightweight and loose-fitting clothing when possible and drink plenty of water.
"To reduce risk during outdoor work, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration recommends scheduling frequent rest breaks in shaded or air conditioned environments. Anyone overcome by heat should be moved to a cool and shaded location. Heat stroke is an emergency! Call 911."
What People Are Saying
The NWS forecast office in Phoenix wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on Sunday: "Extreme heat is back in the forecast this week. Temperatures will continue to climb each day, peaking on Wednesday when highs are expected to reach 110F-116F across the lower deserts. Make sure you take extra precautions and practice smart heat safety."
"Drink a cup of cool water every 20 minutes, even if you aren't thirsty. For long jobs, drink a beverage with electrolytes. Take regular breaks to rest. During hot conditions, skipping breaks is not safe! Seek periodic breaks in the AC if possible. Spend time in the shade when outdoors."
The NWS forecast office in Los Angeles wrote on X: "Hotter weather is on it's way starting Tuesday. Temps will peak Wednesday and Thursday this week across most areas, but heat may linger through the weekend across the interior areas. Ensure you are prepared for the heat and know the signs and what to do in case of heat illness."
What Happens Next
The extreme heat warnings for the affected regions are currently set to remain in force until 8 p.m. on Thursday.
Regular forecast updates are issued by the NWS on its website.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Who's to blame for Texas flooding tragedy? There is a lot of finger pointing.
Who's to blame for Texas flooding tragedy? There is a lot of finger pointing.

USA Today

time20 minutes ago

  • USA Today

Who's to blame for Texas flooding tragedy? There is a lot of finger pointing.

The catastrophe was caused by a perfect storm of difficult-to-forecast rainfall and fast-moving water. Some wonder if budget cuts made things worse. The Texas rains hadn't even slowed before the debate began about why forecasts had underestimated the devastating flooding over Independence Day weekend. Local and state officials, social media users and even the meteorology community raised questions. What were the National Weather Service forecasts? Why is it so hard to know where rain will fall? Did staff reductions at the weather service, and other budget cuts by the Trump administration contribute to the catastrophe? What role did weather balloons play in the storm forecasts? Answers to some of these questions and many others may never be adequately answered, especially for the families of dozens of children swept away by floodwaters. At least 81 people died between July 4 and 6 and dozens more were injured or remain missing, state officials said. On a weekend when families often celebrate with cookouts and fireworks, these families, overwhelmed with grief, were providing DNA samples so a state laboratory could rapidly identify victims. Impact of cuts: NOAA budget spells out plans to reduce spending and abandon climate research A series of circumstances, colliding at the worst possible location and time, caused the tremendous flooding, several meteorologists told USA TODAY. During a July 6 news conference, Texas state officials said there would be much to discuss in the weeks ahead. A few things are known, including how difficult it remains to pinpoint where thunderstorms will drop their heaviest rain, what the weather service said and when, and staffing levels at two local forecast offices. The horrific tragedy arrived in the midst of a maelstrom already brewing over the National Weather Service, its parent agency and the Trump administration's budget cuts. It's 'clear that many people are allowing their desire to score political points to color their insights and opinions on this tragedy," Alan Gerard, who retired earlier this year from the National Severe Storms Laboratory, wrote in his Substack blog on July 6. 'The National Weather Service office did everything they should do from everything I can tell,' said Jeff Masters, co-founder of Weather Underground, a commercial forecasting agency, and a former hurricane scientist with the NOAA Hurricane Hunters. Despite the recent cuts to NOAA, the National Weather Service performed well in the Texas tragedy and in the recent deadly flooding in Kentucky, Masters said. 'It reminds us how important it is to have talented, experienced people at a well-funded National Weather Service.' 'But we are pushing our luck," he noted," if we think the cuts at NOAA won't cause a breakdown in our ability to get people out of harm's way in the future.' Were weather forecasts wrong? Although the warnings arrived less than 24 hours before the flooding started, long-time weather service veterans and regional experts say that's not all that unusual in this region. It's a known shortcoming of the localized rain models forecasters use. They can't yet pinpoint exactly where intense rain might fall and when on an individual community. One expert, Texas State Climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon, said it appears the weather service employees in Austin/San Antonio did what they could, based on the available information. "From what I saw, the warnings were pretty timely," said Nielsen-Gammon, a meteorology professor at Texas A&M University, The weather service office first advised on July 1 and 2 that a very moist air mass was moving in that would increase rain chances across south-central Texas with heavy rain at times that could lead to minor local early morning forecast on July 3 by the NWS Weather Prediction Center said the region should expect 'unseasonably moist' air that could bring 1 to 2 inches of rain an hour and lead to flooding, with approaching storms tapping into abundant tropical moisture. As the day progressed, a clearer picture emerged of how weather systems were interacting above Texas to form storms. An 'urgent' flood watch at 1:18 p.m. July 3 warned heavy rain, with isolated amounts of 5 to 7 inches, could cause flash flooding and 'excessive' runoff that could flood rivers and streams. The watch covered eight counties, including Kerr and Bandera where some of the heaviest flooding occurred. By 7:02 p.m., the weather prediction center warned leftover bits of Tropical Storm Barry, near-record moisture and an unstable atmosphere meant any storms that formed could be self-sustaining, with a potential for rain rates of more than 3 inches an hour, and they could rain over the same area again and again. It stated: 'Considerable flash flooding this evening is possible." A flurry of forecast updates continued. At 1:14 a.m. on July 4, the weather service issued a "Flash Flood Warning" for central Kerr County and northwestern Bandera County. Almost simultaneously, water flow began increasing dramatically on the Guadalupe River at Hunt, Texas. "This pleasing stream had a flow rate of 53 gallons per second at midnight on July 4," said Nielsen-Gammon. At 3 a.m., it was flowing at 264 gallons per second. Between 3 a.m. and 3:30 am., the water flow jumped to 125,000 gallons per second. Within four hours of the initial rise, the river level jumped 21.8 feet and was flowing at 900,000 gallons per second. Did weather service cuts have an impact? President Donald Trump campaigned on cutting the federal bureaucracy and reducing the budget. His administration, including the Office of Management and Budget and the Department of Governmental Efficiency, has been mission-focused on doing so. The sweeping cuts left many federal offices short-staffed and demoralized, according to recent retirees. Many remaining employees, including those who declined to speak on the record for fear of retribution, say employees still fear more jobs will be lost in a reduction in force. Federal agencies were required to prepare a plan for making further reductions, but a federal judge in California ruled in May that the job cuts could not move forward. The weather service office in Austin/San Antonio oversees much of the Hill Country area where the flooding took place. Of the 26 staff positions in that office, six are vacant at the moment, including two senior members, said Victor Murphy, a recently retired National Weather Service meteorologist in Texas. One of those is the warning coordination meteorologist who oversees emergency warnings and working with local officials on communicating around such events. The Austin office also is short two forecasters. Did the cuts play any role in the recent tragedy? Murphy wondered out loud. "I don't know … The fact is that the office had record flooding two days in a row.' The San Angelo, Texas office is down four positions, including a staff forecaster, a lead hydrologist and its meteorologist in charge, said Tom Fahy, legislative director for the National Weather Service Employees Organization. Weather service forecasters often become "an easy target for people's wrath," when people are looking for someone to blame, Fahy said. 'The real blame is the Trump Administration budget cuts to NWS and FEMA that cut off coordination planning with local emergency management officials,' he said. 'Even during Trump's 1st term, NWS managers would plan, practice and train their combined teams for increased cooperation. All that ended when Trump was inaugurated in 2025.' President Trump said July 6 that he doesn't think the federal government needs to rehire weather service meteorologists in the wake of catastrophic Texas flooding. 'I would think not,' Trump told reporters when asked about rehiring weather forecasters, adding that flooding 'happened in seconds. Nobody expected it.' When asked if he would investigate whether the cuts left key vacancies in the weather service or emergency coordination, Trump said he "wouldn't blame (former President Joe) Biden for it either. I would just say this is a 100-year catastrophe, and it's just so horrible for all." Why is it so hard to know where rain will fall? At a news conference on July 5, Nim Kidd, chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management, said: "The original forecast that we received on Wednesday from the National Weather Service predicted 3 to 6 inches of rain in the Concho valley and 4 to 8 inches in the Hill Country." "The amount of rain that fell in this specific location was never in any of those forecasts," Kidd said. Rainfall estimates in these extreme rainfall events have fallen short before, frustrating emergency managers, forecasters and even members of Congress, who approved measures in 2021 and 2022 to improve rainfall modeling and estimates of maximum possible precipitation within any given time frame. As the weather service looked at their computers on July 3, the models they use for forecasting thunderstorms wouldn't come together with a consensus on where the greatest rain would fall, according to their discussions. Many showed the potential for extreme rainfall somewhere in central Texas, while others showed almost nothing happening, Nielsen-Gammon said. "Where it was going to develop would depend on the details of the individual thunderstorms that popped up." Pinpointing localized extreme rain remains "a very difficult challenge," said Gerard. Any time you have this type of environment, there's going to be a chance that local areas are going to get more rain than anticipated." Rainfall in a storm is 'controlled by very small-scale processes that are happening within the storm,' said Gerard, now CEO of weather consulting company Balanced Weather. 'We don't have the resolution of modeling to be able to forecast that yet.' The storms laboratory is working to develop higher resolution modeling, he said, but it's on the chopping block in the president's proposed budget. Did weather service balloon launches play a role? Weather balloon launches measure moisture up through the atmosphere to help predict how much is available for rain. The better the data, the better the outcome, said Murphy, the recently retired Texas meteorologist. "You find out from a sounding what's up 20,000, 30,000 or 40,000 feet. The only way to measure that is with a balloon.' However, staffing shortages at local weather service offices across the U.S. has forced the limiting or cancelation of numerous weather balloon launches. Of 11 locations in Texas and surrounding states that were launching in the early spring, only six of the sites now launch balloons on any given morning, Murphy said. There was only one weather balloon launch within 200 miles of the flooded area, Nielsen-Gammon said. However, that one weather balloon proved its worth, the experts said, providing essential information that helped weather service forecasters see the increased chances for rain. Launched remotely from an automated site in Del Rio, Texas, Murphy said it's "the only one of its kind in the region.' But the federal cutbacks and rising number of climate disasters mean the public is likely to blame someone for every botched forecast and missed opportunity to warn ‒ whether deservedly or not. On July 7, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt defended the president and the National Weather Service's performance. 'Blaming President Trump for these floods is a depraved lie and it serves no purpose during this time of national mourning," Leavitt said. "The National Weather Service did its job." Contributing: Zac Anderson and Joey Garrison, USA TODAY Dinah Voyles Pulver, a national correspondent for USA TODAY, writes about climate change, violent weather and other news. Reach her at dpulver@ or @dinahvp on Bluesky or X or dinahvp.77 on Signal.

Devastating Texas Floods Shattered 93-Year Record
Devastating Texas Floods Shattered 93-Year Record

Newsweek

time25 minutes ago

  • Newsweek

Devastating Texas Floods Shattered 93-Year Record

Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. The catastrophic floods that hit central Texas over the weekend caused the Guadalupe River to flood so high it broke a 93-year-old record by nearly a foot. Newsweek reached out to the National Weather Service (NWS) in Austin, which is the forecast region for Hunt, Texas, where the record was set, by phone for comment. Why It Matters On Friday, the NWS issued urgent warnings to people across central Texas amid heavy downpours that resulted in months' worth of rain at once, prompting the Guadalupe River to surge around 25 feet in only 45 minutes. More than a foot of rain lashed the region before the river flooding on Friday afternoon, NWS meteorologist James Wingenroth told Newsweek. The downpours caused rivers to surge with little advance notice. Floodwaters inundated central Texas, sweeping away an RV park with families still inside their vehicles. More than 80 people have died, and search-and-rescue missions continue on Monday as the region is anticipating more rain. What to Know Early data evaluation by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) along the Guadalupe River in Texas show that record river height was reached in at least one location. In Hunt, Texas, preliminary data suggests the Guadalupe River peaked at 37.52 feet on July 4, according to a Facebook post from Harris County meteorologist Jeff Lindner. This breaks the prior record of 36.60 feet by nearly a foot. That record was set on July 2, 1932. The next highest level occurred on July 17, 1987, when the river reached 28.40 feet. During that flood event, 10 campers died when a bus evacuating them from a summer camp near Comfort, Texas, was overtaken by floodwaters. In the post, Lindner pointed out that the top three flood events for this location occurred during July. In Kerrville, Texas, the river peaked at 34.29 feet, which is the third highest on record. The record was set on July 2, 1932, when the river peaked at 39 feet, followed by a flood event on July 17, 1987, where it peaked at 37.72 feet. "The Kerrville gage rose from 1.82 ft at 5:15 am to a peak of 34.29 ft at 6:45 am or 32.47 ft in 1.5 hrs," Lindner said. "With the number of fatalities surpassing 80 on Sunday, this TX flood event appears to be the deadliest non-tropical flood event in American history since the 1979 Big Thompson Canyon Flood in Colorado which claimed 144 lives." Flooding in central Texas remains a possibility on Monday as heavy rain continues to fall. Flooding caused by a flash flood at the Guadalupe River in Kerrville, Texas, is seen on July 5. Flooding caused by a flash flood at the Guadalupe River in Kerrville, Texas, is seen on July 5. Ronaldo Schemidt/Getty What People Are Saying NWS Corpus Christi in a flood warning about the Guadalupe River: "Motorists should not attempt to drive around barricades or drive cars through flooded areas. Even 6 inches of fast-moving flood water can knock you off your feet and a depth of 2 feet will float your car. Never try to walk, swim, or drive through such swift water. If you come upon flood waters, stop, turn around and go another way." NWS Fort Worth in a flood warning: "Numerous roads remain closed due to flooding. Low-water crossings are inundated with water and may be impassable. It will take several hours for all the water from these storms to recede." What Happens Next? Flooding will remain a possibility through mid-week as it will take time for rivers to recede.

Debate erupts over role job cuts played in weather forecasts ahead of deadly Texas floods
Debate erupts over role job cuts played in weather forecasts ahead of deadly Texas floods

Boston Globe

time31 minutes ago

  • Boston Globe

Debate erupts over role job cuts played in weather forecasts ahead of deadly Texas floods

Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up 'This was an exceptional service to come out first with the catastrophic flash flood warning and this shows the awareness of the meteorologists on shift at the NWS office,' said Brian LaMarre, who retired at the end of April as the meteorologist-in-charge of the NWS forecast office in Tampa, Florida. ″There is always the challenge of pinpointing extreme values, however, the fact the catastrophic warning was issued first showed the level of urgency.' Advertisement Questions linger about level of coordination Questions remain, however, about the level of coordination and communication between NWS and local officials on the night of the disaster. The Trump administration has cut hundreds of jobs at NWS, with staffing down by at least 20% at nearly half of the 122 NWS field offices nationally and at least a half dozen no longer staffed 24 hours a day. Hundreds more experienced forecasters and senior managers were encouraged to retire early. Advertisement The White House also has proposed slashing its parent agency's budget by 27% and eliminating federal research centers focused on studying the world's weather, climate and oceans. The website for the NWS office for Austin/San Antonio, which covers the region that includes hard-hit Kerr County, shows six of 27 positions are listed as vacant. The vacancies include a key manager responsible for issuing warnings and coordinating with local emergency management officials. An online resume for the employee who last held the job showed he left in April after more than 17 years, shortly after mass emails sent to employees urging them to retire early or face potential layoffs. Democrats on Monday pressed the Trump administration for details about the cuts. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer demanded that the administration conduct an inquiry into whether staffing shortages contributed to 'the catastrophic loss of life' in Texas. Meanwhile, Trump said the job eliminations did not hamper any weather forecasting. The raging waters, he said Sunday, were 'a thing that happened in seconds. No one expected it. Nobody saw it.' Former officials warn that job cuts could hamper future forecasts Former federal officials and experts have said Trump's indiscriminate job reductions at NWS and other weather-related agencies will result in brain drain that imperils the federal government's ability to issue timely and accurate forecasts. Such predictions can save lives, particularly for those in the path of quick-moving storms. 'This situation is getting to the point where something could break,' said Louis Uccellini, a meteorologist who served as NWS director under three presidents, including during Trump's first term. 'The people are being tired out, working through the night and then being there during the day because the next shift is short staffed. Anything like that could create a situation in which important elements of forecasts and warnings are missed.' Advertisement After returning to office in January, Trump issued a series of executive orders empowering the Department of Government Efficiency, initially led by mega-billionaire Elon Musk, to enact sweeping staff reductions and cancel contracts at federal agencies, bypassing significant Congressional oversight. Though Musk has now departed Washington and had a very public falling out with Trump, DOGE staffers he hired and the cuts he sought have largely remained, upending the lives of tens of thousands of federal employees. Cuts resulted from Republican effort to privatize duties of weather agencies The cuts follow a decade-long Republican effort to dismantle and privatize many of the duties of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the agency within the Commerce Department that includes the NWS. The reductions have come as Trump has handed top public posts to officials with ties to private companies that stand to profit from hobbling the taxpayer-funded system for predicting the weather. Project 2025, the conservative Chronic staffing shortages have led a handful of offices to curtail the frequency of regional forecasts and weather balloon launches needed to collect atmospheric data. In April, the weather service abruptly ended translations of its forecasts and emergency alerts into languages other than English, including Spanish. The service was soon reinstated after public outcry. Advertisement NOAA's main satellite operations center briefly appeared earlier this year on a list of surplus government real estate set to be sold. Trump's proposed budget also seeks to shutter key facilities for tracking climate change. The proposed cuts include the observatory atop the Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii that for decades has documented the steady rise in plant-warming carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere from burning fossil fuels. On June 25, NOAA abruptly announced that the U.S. Department of Defense would no longer process or transmit data from three weather satellites experts said are crucial to accurately predicting the path and strength of hurricanes at sea. 'Removing data from the defense satellite is similar to removing another piece to the public safety puzzle for hurricane intensity forecasting,' said LaMarre, now a private consultant. 'The more pieces removed, the less clear the picture becomes which can reduce the quality of life-saving warnings.' Trump officials say they didn't fire meteorologists At a pair of Congressional hearings last month, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick called it 'fake news' that the Trump administration had axed any meteorologists, despite detailed reporting from The Associated Press and other media organizations that chronicled the layoffs. 'We are fully staffed with forecasters and scientists,' Lutnick said June 4 before a Senate appropriations subcommittee. 'Under no circumstances am I going to let public safety or public forecasting be touched.' Despite a broad freeze on federal hiring directed by Trump, NOAA announced last month it would seek to fill more than 100 'mission-critical field positions,' as well as plug holes at some regional weather offices by reassigning staff. Those positions have not yet been publicly posted, though a NOAA spokesperson said Sunday they would be soon. Advertisement Asked by AP how the NWS could simultaneously be fully staffed and still advertise 'mission critical positions' as open, Commerce spokesperson Kristen Eichamer said the 'National Hurricane Center is fully staffed to meet this season's demand, and any recruitment efforts are simply meant to deepen our talent pool.' 'The secretary is committed to providing Americans with the most accurate, up-to-date weather data by ensuring the National Weather Service is fully equipped with the personnel and technology it needs,' Eichamer said. 'For the first time, we are integrating technology that's more accurate and agile than ever before to achieve this goal, and with it the NWS is poised to deliver critical weather information to Americans.' Uccellini and the four prior NWS directors who served under Democratic and Republican presidents criticized the Trump cuts in an open letter issued in May; they said the administration's actions resulted in the departures of about 550 employees — an overall reduction of more than 10 percent. 'NWS staff will have an impossible task to continue its current level of services,' they wrote. 'Our worst nightmare is that weather forecast offices will be so understaffed that there will be needless loss of life. We know that's a nightmare shared by those on the forecasting front lines – and by the people who depend on their efforts.' NOAA's budget for fiscal year 2024 was just under $6.4 billion, of which less than $1.4 billion went to NWS. Experts worry about forecasts for hurricanes While experts say it would be illegal for Trump to eliminate NOAA without Congressional approval, some former federal officials worry the cuts could result in a patchwork system where taxpayers finance the operation of satellites and collection of atmospheric data but are left to pay private services that would issue forecasts and severe weather warnings. That arrangement, critics say, could lead to delays or missed emergency alerts that, in turn, could result in avoidable deaths. Advertisement D. James Baker, who served as NOAA's administrator during the Clinton administration, questioned whether private forecasting companies would provide the public with services that don't generate profits. 'Would they be interested in serving small communities in Maine, let's say?' Baker asked. 'Is there a business model that gets data to all citizens that need it? Will companies take on legal risks, share information with disaster management agencies, be held accountable as government agencies are? Simply cutting NOAA without identifying how the forecasts will continue to be provided is dangerous.' Though the National Hurricane Center in Miami has been largely spared staff reductions like those at regional NWS offices, some professionals who depend on federal forecasts and data greeted the June start of the tropical weather season with profound worry. In an unusual broadcast on June 3, longtime South Florida TV meteorologist John Morales warned his viewers that the Trump administration cuts meant he might not be able to provide as accurate forecasts for hurricanes as he had in years past. He cited staffing shortfalls of between 20% and 40% at NWS offices from Tampa to Key West and urged his NBC 6 audience in greater Miami to call their congressional representatives. 'What we are starting to see is that the quality of the forecasts is becoming degraded,' Morales said. 'And we may not know exactly how strong a hurricane is before it reaches the coastline.' AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein contributed.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store