Mexico’s deadly heat dome is coming for the US

Martha McHardy
·3-min read

A prolonged and deadly heatwave that has killed at least 48 people in Mexico is headed for the US.

Temperatures could reach up to 111 degrees Fahrenheit (43C) in Florida, Texas and parts of Nevada, where an intense zone of high pressure, known as a heat dome, will fuel high temperatures over the next 10 days, meteorologists have warned.

The National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center issued a warning that much of the Southwest will be impacted by the heat dome between June 5 and 11, with southern parts of both Texas and Florida already experiencing high temperatures.

The heat index, a measure of how hot it feels factoring in humidity, reached at least 115 degrees (46C) on Memorial Day at Houston Hobby Airport, demolishing the previous May record of 108 degrees (42C) from 1998.

The heat dome brought a similar heat index to the Florida Keys and south Florida ten days ago, with the index topping 105 degrees (40C). Following the brutal weather, meteorologists have predicted that Florida could see some relief from the heat dome because of a dip in the jet stream over the eastern United States in the coming days.

A heat dome occurs when hot ocean air becomes trapped in the atmosphere – much like placing a lid on a boiling pot.

A prolonged and deadly heatwave that has killed at least 48 people in Mexico is headed for the US (Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)
A prolonged and deadly heatwave that has killed at least 48 people in Mexico is headed for the US (Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

The hot air expands across the atmosphere and creates a dome-like structure that prevents cooler air from circulating, blocks cloud coverage and rain and can increase the chance of wildfires.

“Basically we just get the sun pouring down sunshine unimpeded, baking the ground, and no real cloud cover or moisture to stave off our temperatures,” Gabriel A Vecchi, professor of Geosciences at Princeton University, told TIME.

The heat dome has already been breaking records in Mexico since early May, with many states in the country observing their highest temperatures on record.

Temperatures hit 94.5 degrees (34C) in Mexico City on Friday and Saturday – its highest temperature in 50 years of data keeping, according to the country’s National Meteorological Service. Meanwhile, temperatures soared to 118.4 degrees (48C) in Valle Nacional over the weekend, marking Oaxaca state’s hottest day.

Amid the heatwave, more than 80 per cent of the country is also enduring drought, with at least four dozen people dying from heat stroke and dehydration in Mexico over the past two months. The heat has also killed around 150 howler monkeys, which have been seen dropping dead from trees amid the high temperatures.

And there is little sign of the heat dome over Mexico dissipating, with researchers at the National Autonomous University of Mexico warning last week that the country “will experience the highest temperatures ever recorded” into early June.

The heat dome in Mexico has been partly fueled by the most recent El Nino weather phenomenon, a climate pattern that describes the unusual warming of surface waters in the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean.

  • Up next
  • Up next
  • Up next
  • Up next

Latest stories

  • ‘Like the devil on meth’: New Zealand feral cat killing competition produces record haul

    Contest condemned by animal rights groups sees children and adults hunt cats, which threaten native wildlife

  • Moscow takes two more east Ukrainian villages

    Moscow on Monday claimed to have captured two more villages in eastern Ukraine, but acknowledged that tens of thousands of people in Russia's border areas were affected by power outages caused by Kyiv's drone attacks.  The tiny village lies in an area of the front -- northwest of occupied Avdiivka -- where Moscow has claimed almost every week this summer to have captured a new settlement.  

  • ‘They don’t know if they’ll survive’: The Indian garbage pickers working through extreme heat

    For millions of Indians, the extreme heat of the summer makes their daily lives even harder.

  • Sinkholes spread fear in Turkey's parched breadbasket

    Every time Turkish farmer Fatih Sik drives his tractor across his cornfields he knows the earth could open up and swallow him at any moment. "It's the first time I have seen this, it's impressive."

  • Switzerland’s deadly flooding shows how vulnerable it is to natural disasters, government warns

    Severe weather has caused at least four deaths in the mountainous central European country of Switzerland, forcing one federal politician to ponder if the country is capable of weathering future storms.

  • 'Life-Threatening' Hurricane Beryl Approaches Caribbean Islands

    A satellite captured spectacular imagery showing lightning within Hurricane Beryl’s eye wall as the storm moved northward toward the Windward Islands in the Caribbean on Sunday, June 30.The Category 4 hurricane was expected to bring life-threatening wind, rain, and storm surges to Grenada, St Vincent, and the Grenadines by Monday morning, and could impact Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, and the Cayman Islands later in the week, according to the US National Hurricane Center. Credit: CSU/CIRA & NOAA via Storyful

  • Much of New Mexico is under flood watch after 100 rescued from waters over weekend

    Weather forecasters warned Monday that much of New Mexico faces two more days of elevated threats of dangerous flooding like the walls of water over the weekend that caused severe damage, forced the rescues of 100 people and left parts of one town recently ravaged by wildfires covered in mud and debris. The body of one person was recovered from the Rio Grande in Albuquerque on Sunday, but it wasn't immediately clear if the death was flood related, according to Albuquerque Fire Rescue and Bernalillo County Fire Rescue. Most of central New Mexico remained under a flood watch into Tuesday, including Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Las Vegas and Ruidoso.

  • Hurricane Beryl barrels toward Jamaica as category 5 storm after ‘flattening’ Grenada island: Live

    Hurricane Beryl heads for Jamaica after leaving trail of destruction in Grenada and St Vincent and the Grenadines

  • Flight cancellations as Hurricane Beryl heads to the Caribbean

    ’Preparations to protect life and property should be rushed to completion’ – National Hurricane Center

  • At least 4 dead, 1 missing after flooding in southern Switzerland

    At least four people have died and another is missing due to flooding this weekend in southern Switzerland, according to local police and Swiss state media.

  • Rare white buffalo sacred to Lakota not seen in Yellowstone since birth

    Park staff say they have not been able to locate calf, who fulfilled Lakota prophecy and is named Wakan Gli

  • Dozens Rescued From Severe Flooding in Northern Italy

    Dozens of rescue operations had been carried out after heavy rains caused landslide and severe flooding in Italy’s northern province of Turin on Saturday, June 29, into Sunday, June 30, authorities said.Footage from by Vigili del Fuoco, Italy’s national fire service, shows a vehicle stranded in floodwaters, washed-out roadways, and raging waters flowing over a waterfall.Among those rescued were a family of three who became trapped inside their vehicle due to a a flooded stream, the fire service said.In the mountain town of Alagna Valsesia, northeast of Turin, authorities declared a state of emergency after floods caused a bridge to collapse and damaged several roads.Storms and flooding also impacted neighboring regions in France and Switzerland, including the Italian-speaking Swiss region of Canton Ticino where, according to local reports, at least two people were killed and one person was missing after heavy rains triggered landslides. Credit: Vigili del Fuoco via Storyful

  • UK weather: What's the forecast for July?

    Currently we're looking at rather changeable conditions with temperatures a little below average for the time of year although the South will be pleasantly warm at times. The middle of the week will bring some rather wet and windy weather and temperatures will nudge up a little ahead of the weekend.

  • Delhi suffers extreme weather whiplash as heat waves give way to record rain and deadly flash floods

    Deadly flash flooding due to sudden heavy rains has inundated India’s capital, replacing one of the worst heat waves in Delhi’s history that sent temperatures soaring well above 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit).

  • Mapped: Hurricane Beryl powers through Caribbean islands as Category 5 storm

    Hurricane Beryl has broken records as the earliest category 4 and category 5 storm

  • German industry turns to solar in race to cut energy costs

    For months, Philip Matthias tried to convince his father to install solar panels on their company's roof in the eastern German state of Thuringia, aiming to cut electricity costs and carbon emissions at the metal products factory. Since the war in Ukraine and the sudden drop in Russia fossil fuel exports to Germany, Berlin has introduced laws to accelerate solar power expansion, part of its plan to cover 80% of the country's energy from renewables by 2030. Encouraged by a feed-in tariff providing a guaranteed price to renewable energy producers selling their power, as well as reduced solar panel costs, German companies are increasingly turning to solar to get around high energy costs.

  • Seven dead after storms lash France, Switzerland and Italy

    Ferocious storms and torrential rains that lashed France, Switzerland and Italy this weekend have left at least seven people dead, local authorities said on Sunday.Three people died after torrential rains triggered a landslide in southeastern Switzerland, police in the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino said Sunday.Elsewhere in Switzerland, a man was found dead in a hotel in Saas-Grund in the southwest canton of Valais, police said, adding that he was probably taken by surprise by a sudden rapid rise in floodwater.Images published in the online publication 20minuten showed parts of the town covered in a thick layer of mud and rocks.Another man is also missing in Valais, police said.In France, three people in their 70s and 80s died in the northeastern Aube region on Saturday when a falling tree crushed the car they were travelling in, the local authority told AFP.A fourth passenger was in critical care, it added.Switzerland's civil security services said "several hundred" people were evacuated in the southern canton of Valais and roads closed after the Rhone and its tributaries overflowed in different locations.The situation in Valais was "under control" Sunday, Frederic Favre, the official responsible for civil security, told a press conference, but he warned that it would remain "fragile" for the next several days.Emergency services were assessing the best way to evacuate 300 people who had arrived for a football tournament in the mountain town of Peccia, while almost 70 more were being evacuated from a holiday camp in the village of Mogno.The poor weather was making rescue work particularly difficult, police had said earlier, with several valleys in the southern cantons of Ticino and Valais near the border with Italy, inaccessible and cut off from the electricity network.In Ticino, some 400 people -- including 40 children from a holiday camp -- had to be evacuated from risk areas and taken to civil protection centres. The federal alert system also said part of the canton was without drinking water.Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis, who is from Ticino, said the repeated disasters "have touched us deeply".It's the worst flooding experienced in the canton since 2000 when 13 people were killed in a mudslide which destroyed the village of Gondo.Scientists say climate change driven by human activity is increasing the severity, frequency and length of extreme weather events such as floods and storms.- Italy flooding -In northern Italy, Piedmont and the Aosta Valley also suffered flooding and mudslides, though no deaths were reported.Firefighters in Piedmont announced Sunday morning that they had carried out 80 operations to rescue people in difficulty.A mudslide temporarily blocked a regional road to the ski resort of Cervinia in the Aosta Valley, a semi-autonomous region located along the border with France and Switzerland. A river which burst its banks caused significant damage to the centre of the town where several streets were flooded.A mudslide blocked access to Cogne, a village of 1,300 people in the Aosta Valley, where 90 millimetres of rainfall was recorded in a six-hour period on Saturday.At the European football championships in Germany, a match between Germany and Denmark Saturday evening was interrupted for almost half an hour because of heavy rain and lighting. bur-vog/cls/db/gv

  • Caribbean braces as Hurricane Beryl strengthens

    Caribbean islands are preparing for the arrival of an increasingly powerful storm from Sunday night.

  • Solar installations fall as Australian households hit by cost-of-living squeeze

    With solar module prices ‘well down’ in 2024 it could yet be a record year for installations, Sunwiz says

  • Indian state battling floods braces for more rain

    Severe floods in the north-eastern state of Assam have displaced hundreds of thousands of people.