too effing hot

I’m definitely “feeling warm”

we're not ready for this

Heat = expansion. Here's a look at a concrete panel that popped up on NB I-5 at I-405 in Tukwila. Crews are removing the damaged panel and filling it back in. No estimated time for getting these lanes and ramp back open. Fortunately, not much of a backup at the moment. pic.twitter.com/OLd1Ewf6Kt

— WSDOT Traffic (@wsdot_traffic) June 28, 2021

so hot, the smart thermostat is like u ok bro #heatdome #portand pic.twitter.com/t2TrzLPhVz

— foul stack developer (@monica_farrell) June 28, 2021

In case you're wondering why we're canceling service for the day, here's what the heat is doing to our power cables. pic.twitter.com/EqbKUgCJ3K

— Portland Streetcar (@PDXStreetcar) June 27, 2021

steel wired armoured cables are rated for both very high and low operating temperatures, that one looks like it was damaged by touching something much hotter than the atmospheric temperature before it went bang!

or before it went pop it was already visibly damaged and this is a maintenance issue rather than blaming the heatwave imo. Anyway I need to stop pretending to be a spark when I hung up my snips 10 years ago.

glad to see at 1am it's down to .... 87º

Places hotter than Portland today: the Sahara, Death Valley and the Persian Gulf.

Some states that have never been as hot as Portland was today: New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Florida.

11:30 and already 93 degrees where I am, jesus christ. I decided to hang out laundry because I'm running out of summer clothes, and had to drench myself with the hose twice in the process, which makes me wonder why I'm even bothering to dry my clothes. I should just hand-wash each item when I want to wear it and then put it on wet.

Even in Siberia!!

Newly published satellite imagery shows the ground temperature in at least one location in Siberia topped 118 degrees Fahrenheit (48 degrees Celsius) going into the year’s longest day...

Number of 100° days, 1894-June 25, 2021: 3
Number of 100° days, June 26-28, 2021: 3

— Seattle Weather Blog (@KSeattleWeather) June 28, 2021

a long time ago I bought this Liquid IV powder stuff from costco and never used it. I have finally cracked it open after a completely sleepless night in a 90+ degree house and it is pretty crazy how quickly/well it works

Monday is now forecast to reach the temperature at which we were allowed to undo the top button of our shirts at school

we made it at 17:29 yesterday btw!

steel wired armoured cables are rated for both very high and low operating temperatures, that one looks like it was damaged by touching something much hotter than the atmospheric temperature before it went bang!

I am even more of an ignoramus about engineering and electrics than on most topics, but does it not look like it was touching a giant threaded piece of metal, such as the one behind it, that naturally became hotter than the air temperature?

it could also have been the steel strands heating up to a very high temp for milliseconds as the live popped and melting the PVC sheathing into that stranded pattern that looks like it could have touched the threaded metal, but I'm not pretending to be CSI electrical fault finder master here. Not done the job in years m8!

is this something that frequently happens in southern hemisphere hot countries as well?

i personally havent been in such hot weather (currently 37C / 98.6F) since i was a child holidaying in rome when it was over 40 degrees. was at the beach yesterday and a pool party on saturday. i think i am not leaving the apartment today.

it’s 115° where I am lol

which beats the old ('old' meaning up until last Saturday) all-time record high by about 8° or 9°(!) to a native Oregonian this weather feels berserk. when the nighttime temp never falls below 80° it's disorienting and scary.

xp. damn that is a ludicrous temperature

Breaking all time records by 5+ F is the thing that should catch everyone's eye regardless of their stance on climate change. Alas…

This is the one that’s messing me up

Today is hotter in Portland OR - at least 115F - than it has ever been in:

Oklahoma City OK (113F on 8/11/1936 and 8/3/2012)
Dallas-Fort Worth TX (113F on 6/26 and 6/27/1980)
Austin TX (112F on 9/5/2000 and 8/28/2011)

— Bob Henson (@bhensonweather) June 28, 2021

Only (only!) 102 in my neighborhood, and when I walked outside it felt like exactly like being in a dry sauna, when the heat is getting close to unbearable and you're just about ready to jump in a snowbank. The air felt thick without being humid; very strange. I felt lightheaded after a couple of minutes. Admittedly I'm a lightweight when it comes to heat, but it's bad out there.

i walked a mile out of curiosity, here are my scientific findings:

- when i touched my hair my hand registered pain
- don't do this

is AC common in Seattle/Portland residences? It's not at all common here in Vancouver. I was freaking out about how our greyhound would do in this heat so yesterday we took him to my inlaw's basement, which feels like the coolest place in the entire city

No. I’m in a hotel, and it seems likely the hotel is full of locals right now

Someone drove here from Spokane (the other side of the state) because there were no hotel rooms left there

i have a small wall-mounted A/C unit, but almost certainly wouldn't if my HOA didn't require it. you can't book hotel rooms in portland or seattle right now, there's no vacancy and it's all locals.

the wind has kicked up in Eugene but that's another problem in the making

I am incredibly lucky to have wonderful housemates who a year ago clubbed together and got me a window AC for my birthday because my room gets a ton of afternoon sunlight. It would never have occurred to me to get one on my own.

still can't believe they ran the track and field trials in eugene yesterday

Even most newer apartments in the Seattle area don't have AC. You might get an AC vent that makes it easier to hook up a portable unit but that's it.

On the bright side, isn’t power in the PNW basically all hydro?

Bonneville Power Administration distributes the hydropower from federal dam projects in the region. There are a few dams owned by utility companies, but they mostly own generating plants, not dams. A quick look at the BPA website came up with:

Bonneville’s power accounts for about 65 percent of the generating capacity and half of the firm energy produced in the Northwest. Hydropower accounts for 80 percent of the capacity and 67 percent of the energy provided by Bonneville.

So, hydro is substantial in the PNW, but these numbers indirectly show it accounts for less than half.

i'm sure the unprecedented drought conditions won't be a problem for all that

Truly in awe scrolling down the list of sold out hotels on Expedia.

i'm sure the unprecedented drought conditions won't be a problem for all that

My friend who has been at the airport all day

gate agent literally announced “you can see we’ll have a bit of a delay, we have a lot of ground crew that have gone to the hospital today, and there aren’t many left” which has me feeling bad for a few reasons

— David Lubell (@davidlubell) June 29, 2021

this may end up being attributable to climate change https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/06/28/champlain-towers-garage-flooding/

jfc@ silby airport post

caek I am genuinely interested in yr source for that PNW rain prediction, my understanding is that the glaciers will be gone here in ten years but r u saying the snow will become rain?

s this something that frequently happens in Southern Hemisphere hot countries as well?

what happens to UK infrastructure when there are three days in a row of 40°C?

Climate change will make most of the world wetter. Desertification is going to be the exception rather than the rule.

Nearby glaciers that melt are not relevant to whether a place gets wetter or drier IIUC.

I don’t remember specifically where I saw anything about the PNW but it was probably in contrast to the US southwest (which is going to get drier, along with the plains).

Hydro, wind, and solar for generation in WA specifically. The nukes have all been shut down/core drilled. The PNW is well connected to the western grid so if local generation falls short, it's readily supplied. Most of the outages in King county (greater Seattle area) have been from underground equipment failure. If the wind picks up from the big temperature swing we are supposed to see tonight, we'll probably get larger outages from tree or transmission line arcs.

About eight (?) years ago I saw a map that illustrated where climate change was predicted to increase current rainfall and where it would decrease it, and by how much. It followed a wavy horizontal line across north america, with the shift to drier south of it and the wetter shift north. That line ran almost directly through Eugene, OR and stayed more or less just below the 45th parallel across Oregon. The upshot was that annual precipitation amounts weren't predicted to change much here, but snowpacks would be much less, with rain replacing snow (which is bad).

One way to measure a heatwave is by how much temperatures have exceeded normal conditions.

By that metric, the heatwave in the Pacific Northwest has essentially tied, or possible even exceeded, the most severe summer heatwave ever observed anywhere in North America. pic.twitter.com/Mli3EvZNrE

— Dr. Robert Rohde (@RARohde) June 28, 2021

we made it at 17:29 yesterday btw!

🔥NEW ALL-TIME RECORD HIGH 🔥

Seattle reached 106° in the 2 o’clock hour, establishing a new record for hottest temperature in recorded history.

The previous record high of 104° only survived a day.

— Seattle Weather Blog (@KSeattleWeather) June 28, 2021

calzino some backstory on that melted wire and a bunch of other electrical problems https://www.newsweek.com/extreme-heat-melts-streetcar-cable-portland-service-suspended-days-1604891

ah yeah that's interesting, it seems their heatwave related problems are more than just supply cables popping (sagging copper overhead wires looks the main prob), because SWAs can operate at greater temperatures than 110. I know the resistance in copper conductors increases in high temperatures but when they are 25 mm² they work ok in steel foundries and other very hot industrial environments

I think they figured a pic of a blown cable is a more convincing explanation, because when they start talking about sagging overhead cables it might take on a "wrong type of leaves/wrong type of snow" incredulity in inconvenienced commuters minds.

record 102°F in newark, 98°F at laguardia today, with 50-60% humidity

it's not OR/WA/BC, but it's not great

record for what? june 29? surely that's not all time.

i was wondering the same. that seems right for the east coast:

Hottest day of 2021 (so far) ☀️🥵

Preliminary high temps:

NYC: 95
JFK: 90
LaGuardia: 98R
Islip: 88
Newark: 102R
Bridgeport: 94R

R=Record high tied or broken

One more day of intense heat is on tap for the Tri-State. Heat Advisory stays in effect for most until 8 PM Wednesday.

— NWS New York NY (@NWSNewYorkNY) June 29, 2021