Heat Dome Sends Temperatures Soaring for 73 Million in US

This morning, tens of millions from coast to coast are broiling thanks to an early blast of record heat.

Oh my God, it’s going to be hot.

More than 70 million Americans waking up under heat alerts from Iowa through Maine, a stubborn heat dome sending temperature soaring up to 25 degrees above average, and threatening to shatter more than 100 daily records this week. In the Midwest, Chicago hitting 97 degrees yesterday, smashing a record set back in 1957 and Detroit residents taking a sweltering 101 degree heat index in stride.

A great smothering heat, and then a beautiful cool breeze off the Michigan water.

The National Weather Service warning the Ohio River Valley may experience its most impactful heat wave of the 21st century.

You can’t be out too long. You have to stay hydrated.

And those blistering temps are now barreling east with officials in several major cities warning people to take the heat seriously.

Summers are different than they were before.

New York’s Governor activating the National Guard, Boston’s Mayor, declaring a state of emergency. But out west, the emergency is wildfires with more than 20 burning across multiple states. New evacuation orders issued yesterday for an entire community in New Mexico, the village of Ruidoso telling residents, “Go now,” with two fires growing rapidly in the area. And in California.

Make sure you got our back.

The post-fire north of LA now topping 15,000 acres and threatening dozens of homes. With dramatic conditions in the west and extreme heat rolling east, Americans bracing for a wild weather week.

All right, so back to the heat, and adding to the chaos here, tens of thousands of people here in Pittsburgh lost power overnight after severe storms rolled through, and crews are now racing to restore it, knowing how desperate everyone is for air conditioning. Hoda.

Yeah. All right, Maggie Vespa in Pittsburgh there, Maggie, thank you.

That makes for a long night. Al, good morning. What do you got?

Yeah, good morning. Unfortunately, guys, Maggie put it best; we are looking at a long duration heat event through Friday, these are potential record highs from Louisville, Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, Syracuse, Burlington, Bangor, Maine. We’re looking at Wilmington, temperatures anywhere from 10 to 30 degrees above average for those records. For today, Buffalo, not quite close to the record, but the heat index is going to be 98. It’s going to feel like that, triple digits in Pittsburgh. It’s going to feel like 90 in Boston, 96 in Washington DC.

(02:29)
And then we move on into tomorrow and look at this triple digits feeling like in Concord, Syracuse, Altoona, Pennsylvania, 93. Feels like 100 tomorrow in Cleveland, and that heat continues right on into Thursday. We’re not going to really see a break in this for at least a week in this area in purple, stretching from New England all the way down to St. Louis, Detroit, Cincinnati. This a long duration event that could actually be deadly if you are exposed to this heat long enough.

(02:57)
Here’s the deal now, through Thursday, strong dome of high pressure, this heat dome hangs into the Northeast, but then as we get toward the weekend, it slides back down to the south, so we get a little bit of a break for upstate New York and New England, but the Midwest and the mid-Atlantic states on into the Great Lakes, still going to be feeling that heat. And you can see, look at these. These are the number of days in a row where we’re going to be looking at this heat wave lasting. Syracuse, four days. Cincinnati, eight days, 90 or above. New York, five days. DC, eight days as well. And we’ve got potential tropical cyclone number one, right now, tropical storm warnings up from Brownsville to Corpus Christi. We’re going to look at that in detail coming up in the next half hour.

(03:42)
Hey, thanks for watching. Don’t miss The Today Show every week day at 11:00 AM Eastern, 8:00 Pacific on our streaming channel today, all day. To watch, head to today.com/all day or click the link right here.