2021 Western North America heat wave

Common card · No. 443894

The 2021 Western North America heat wave was an extreme heat wave that affected much of Western North America from late June through early July 2021. The heat wave affected Northern California, Idaho, Western Nevada, Oregon, and Washington in the United States, as well as British Columbia, and in its latter phase, Alberta, Manitoba, the Northwest Territories, Saskatchewan, and Yukon, all in Canada. It also affected inland regions of Central and Southern California, Nevada, and Montana, though the temperature anomalies were not as extreme as in the regions farther north. The heat wave was characterized as a heat dome because of the extreme temperatures and the exceptionally strong ridge centered over the area, whose probability of formation was linked to the effects of climate change by multiple studies. It resulted in some of the highest temperatures ever recorded in the region, including the highest temperature ever measured in Canada at 49.6 °C (121.3 °F), as well as the highest temperatures...

Read on Wikipedia · Image NASA Earth Observatory/Joshua Stevens, Public domain