Blistering temperatures reached unheard-of northerly latitudes in Canada over the weekend amid dangerously hot and dry conditions, lightning storms and new blazes that intensified the country’s historically severe fire season.
The temperature soared as high as 100 degrees in the Northwest Territories on Saturday, the hottest temperature ever measured north of 65 degrees latitude in the Western Hemisphere, according to Christopher Burt, an extreme-weather historian.
The scorching temperatures over western Canada exacerbated the country’s unprecedented wildfire crisis. A record 22.7 million acres (9.2 million hectares) have burned so far, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre, blowing past the previous high mark of 17.5 million acres (7.1 million hectares) in 1995. There are months of the wildfire season to go.
The excessive heat warning that hit Phoenix on June 30 is likely to continue into next week and become the longest heat wave on record, according to the National Weather Service.
Threat level: Phoenix will break the record 18-day streak of 110-plus-degree days if the heat wave continues through July 18 — which is well within the realm of possibility, NWS meteorologist Gabriel Lojero tells Axios Phoenix.
www.axios.com/local/phoenix/2023/07/10/phoenix-historic-heat-wave-record