Slashdot: At Nearly 116 Degrees, Heat in Western Canada Shatters National Record

At Nearly 116 Degrees, Heat in Western Canada Shatters National Record
Published on July 01, 2021 at 12:53AM
The heat is expected to continue for several days in some parts of British Columbia, according to weather warnings from the government. From a report: Vancouverites were frying eggs on pans placed on their terraces. One man checked into an air-conditioned five-star hotel, after the five fans aimed at his bed at home and the seventh cold shower failed to bring relief. Lettuce plants shriveled in the Okanagan Valley, British Columbia's picturesque wine region. Flowers wilted. People wilted. The heat wave across western Canada has much of a country known for its sweater weather sweating. Canada broke a national heat record on Sunday when the temperature in a small town in British Columbia reached almost 116 degrees Fahrenheit, breaking an 84-year-old record by nearly 3 degrees, with dangerously hot weather expected to continue for several more days. "This is a complete shock to a Canadian -- this feels like Las Vegas or India -- not Vancouver," said Chris Johnson, a criminal lawyer who on Monday was heading to an air-conditioned hotel room as temperatures inside his home reached 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Tying any one weather event to climate change requires extensive attribution analysis, but heat waves around the world are growing more frequent, longer-lasting and more dangerous, experts say. David Phillips, a senior climatologist at Environment Canada, a government agency, said the early timing of this one, its intensity and its duration, could all be attributable to rising global temperatures.

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