Data Dump: It's getting hot in here

📈 Data Dump 📊

Thermometer at Death Valley. Source: National Park Service.

“We just experienced the hottest month in history in the hottest place on Earth!” So said Death Valley National Park Superintendent Mike Reynolds in a press release in early August.

• 108.5°F: Death Valley’s average daily temperature for the month of July, beating the park’s previous record of 108.1°F set in 2018.

• 121.9°F: Death Valley’s average maximum temperature in July. The temperature exceeded 125°F on nine days last month.

• 95.2° F: Death Valley’s average overnight low temperature this July, four degrees above normal. The minimum temperature exceeded 100° on three nights in July.

The park experienced one heat-related fatality in July, and officials had to rescue one person after a flip-flop failure in the sand dunes left him with second-degree burns. At least three people have died of heat-related causes in Grand Canyon National Park this summer and a father and daughter perished in Canyonlands NP. Reynolds added: “Six of the 10 hottest summers have come in the past 10 years, which should serve as a wake up call.”

Wakey wakey! Time to fry the bakey! (On the sidewalk, apparently).

Most of the rest of the West has been sizzling in much the same way this summer. While all-time maximum high records aren’t being shattered, the severe heat has been more sustained, i.e. relentless. And even in places that got a fair amount of precipitation this winter, and that have had some monsoon activity — even flash flooding — this summer, the heat has dried out fuel and contributed to a rather active fire season so far.

5.2 million Acres burned in large wildfires so far this year (and fire season’s nowhere near over). Last year only 2.7 million acres were charred over the entire season.

430,000 Acres burned so far in the Park Fire, the largest of the 556 active wildfires currently burning in the U.S. It was first reported on July 25 and was about 39% contained as of Aug. 13.

28,000 Approximate number of households and businesses left without power in northern California and Nevada after wildfires damage transmission lines and utilities shut off power to reduce wildfire hazard.

133 Number of monthly maximum temperature records tied or broken in the West this July. Another 113 records were set for the warmest overnight low temperatures.

160 Number of daily records for warmest overnight low temperatures set in Colorado, alone, in July.

89°F The high temperature at Deadhorse, in the Alaskan Arctic, on Aug. 6, smashing the previous all-time record.

Last year Phoenix was broiled by 31 consecutive days of 110°F+ highs. While that won’t be repeated (probably) this year, it appears as if this summer might actually be hotter on average, due to an unusually warm June 2024 (versus a relatively cool June last year).

97°F: Phoenix’s average daily temperature for the month of June, 5.6 degrees above the 1990-2020 normal.

83; 45 Number of days so far this summer that the maximum temperature in Phoenix has equaled or exceeded 100° F and 110° F, respectively. The record number of 110° days is 55, set in 2023.

66: Number of this year’s confirmed heat-related deaths in Maricopa County, Arizona, as of Aug. 3. Another 447 fatalities are under investigation.

50% Percent of the people who have been killed by heat in Maricopa County who were also unhoused.

And while we’re talking Phoenix, let’s take a look at some heat-related maps, meaning, I guess, we’ll be merging our Data Dump with …

🗺️ Messing with Maps 🧭

I’ll admit that I’m somewhat fascinated by Phoenix, which is why I often return to it here. Even as a kid I was kind of awed by the place. There were the saguaros, of course, but also something about the light and the winter warmth and the newness of the city, itself. Scottsdale seemed so glamorous with its emerald green lawns stark against the desert background, its sprawling mid-century modern homes, the huge windows on the hillsides reflecting the setting sun.

All of that still captivates, but I’m also both amazed and befuddled about the fact that some 5 million people live in a place that is virtually uninhabitable without air-conditioning for three months of the year.

I’m also interested in — and disturbed by — the fact that it is one of the places where wealth inequality is more apparent, and its consequences more deadly, than in many other cities. It’s where the inequity of heat simmers to the surface. As I wrote in a dataviz in this month’s edition of High Country News, it’s not the heat that discriminates, but one’s ability to escape the heat:

Extreme heat, exacerbated by human-caused climate change, doesn’t discriminate; it kills more people than all other natural disasters combined. Still, a closer look at what happened in Phoenix last year reveals that high temperatures are especially hard on the less affluent: 46% of those who died lacked housing altogether, while all the indoor deaths occurred in homes, apartments or mobile homes that lacked air conditioning, allowing the average ambient temperature to reach 102 degrees. 

That’s because it’s not just heat that’s at fault here. As a 2021 report from the Arizona State University’s Knowledge Exchange for Resilience put it, “It is rather the lack of opportunity to mitigate the heat and stay resilient to it.” Unfortunately, that ability is distributed unequally among communities of different income levels, race and ethnicity.

The infographic included maps of Phoenix, Portland, Sacramento and Salt Lake City, all showing a correlation between poverty levels and heat burdens. I wanted to go a bit deeper with the Phoenix maps. So I’m going to leave them here without much more comment and you can draw your own conclusions.

Income

You can see that the lower-income neighborhoods are mostly in the downtown area, stretching up into Glendale. The higher income areas are in mostly in the northeast.

Heat and contributing factors

It’s just crazy, in my opinion, that there is even such a thing as a burn risk level map for a city. And yet — here it is. This focuses on downtown Phoenix and its surroundings, so it can be a bit difficult to match it with the income maps. But generally the “very high” burn risk correlates with the high poverty/low income areas.

A lot of concrete and asphalt and other impermeable surfaces not only intensifies the urban heat island effect, but also can exacerbate flash flooding.

And the inverse: The more trees you’ve got, the cooler your neighborhood will be. You can see that Scottsdale has decent tree cover, while the downtown areas are more like a concrete jungle.

This is a moisture index map (blue is moister, or has more vegetation; orange is drier). Again you can see that Scottsdale is moister, and probably cooler, while downtown and South Phoenix have less vegetation. Note the alfalfa fields on the fringes.

This shows the percentage of homes in each zip code that are mobile homes. Mobile homes typically are not well-insulated and are therefore less resilient to extreme heat.