Canada sets new all-time heat record of 121 degrees amid unprecedented heat wave

The British Columbia village of Lytton set the country’s heat record for a third straight day Tuesday, after Portland and Seattle notched all-time highs on Monday, reported www.washingtonpost.com.

The most severe heat wave in the history of the Pacific Northwest has climaxed, obliterating scores of long-standing records in both the U.S. and Canada. The National Weather Service had predicted the heat wave would be “historic, dangerous, prolonged and unprecedented,” and it has lived up to its billing.

Perhaps the most astonishing heat occurred Tuesday in British Columbia where the high temperature in the village of Lytton soared to 121 degrees, setting Canada’s national heat record for a third straight day. For perspective, this temperature is more extreme than the all-time high in Las Vegas, 117, and higher than most places in the Lower 48 states outside the Desert Southwest.
“Words cannot describe this historic event,” tweeted Environment Canada’s British Columbia branch.

According to world weather records expert Maximiliano Herrera, the 121-degree reading also set a new world record for the most extreme high temperature ever observed north of 45 degrees latitude.
Lytton broke Canada’s previous national heat record of 113 degrees on three consecutive days, rising to 116 Sunday, 118 Monday and finally 121 Tuesday, which tied Death Valley for the day’s highest temperature in North America.

In the Lower 48 states, while the heat eased on Tuesday in Seattle and Portland, record-setting temperatures roasted the interior Pacific Northwest. Spokane, for example, set a new all-time high of 109 degrees.

A preliminary new all-time state record high temperature was set in Oregon, where Hermiston, about 185 miles east of Portland, surged to 118 degrees. This occurred just one day after Dallesport, Wash., also hit 118, preliminarily tying a Washington state record. Dallesport is located about midway between Hermiston and Portland along the Washington-Oregon border.

Tuesday’s exceptional inland heat followed a sweltering Monday when locations closer to the coast saw temperatures balloon 30 to 40 degrees above normal.

Portland and Seattle broke all-time records by enormous margins. Portland reached 116 degrees, the highest temperature in more than 80 years of record-keeping. It was the third day in a row the city set a new all-time high. Before this weekend, the all-time high was 107, but on Saturday it hit 108 and on Sunday 112.

Seattle soared to a sizzling 108 degrees Monday evening, surpassing the all-time record of 104 degrees set the day before (which topped the previous mark of 103 from 2009). The high of 108 was 34 degrees above the normal high of 74 and higher than the all-time heat record in Washington, D.C., among many other cities much farther to its south.

Medford, Ore., tied its all-time record Monday of 115 degrees.

Some places on Monday shattered all-time records, which are exceptionally rare and difficult to break, by 5 or even 10-plus degrees. For example, Quillayute, Wash., which hit 110, obliterated its previous all-time high by 11 degrees matching the largest margin for breaking such a record ever observed globally.
The strength of the heat dome, or sprawling zone of high pressure centered near the U.S.-Canada border, responsible for these temperatures has been off the charts and blowing away records. Its intensity has been so statistically rare that it might be expected only once every several thousand years on average. But human-caused climate change has made exceptional events such as this many times more probable.

“The past is no longer a reliable guide for the future. These events are becoming more frequent and intense, a trend projected to continue,” tweeted the Oregon Climate Office.

Meteorologists described the situation as “insane,” “bonkers” and “incredible.” The Weather Service in Seattle wrote that attempting to forecast heat so extreme was “disconcerting,” because no analogous situation has occurred in the past.
Because of the heat wave’s longevity, new record-long streaks for surpassing different temperature thresholds are also occurring. For example, Seattle experienced triple-digit heat on three straight days for the first time on record.

Officials have expressed the fear that the intensity and duration of the heat wave will lead to dramatic increases in heat-related illness and fatalities in a region where many lack air-conditioning. In British Columbia, there appeared to be a mounting death toll related to the heat.

While the intensity of the heat wave will slowly wane in the coming days, dangerously hot temperatures are forecast to continue in the interior Pacific Northwest and western Canada into the weekend. And above normal temperatures may persist even beyond that.

Here is a running list of some of the most significant records established during this unprecedented event: