What does one do when the best example of some event on which a feature story could hang comes along just AFTER that same feature is published?"
It just happened to one of the most prolific, relentlessly thick skinned reporters in the business (one can only imagine the hate mail and other frownies this stalwart rationalist science writer gets from the climate contrarian and some of their relatedly-crackpot fellow travelers). To remind one and all, a few days ago I ran a post on that feature. And here is, again, the link directly to it.
- AP (Jun 25) Seth Borenstein: 94 in Alaska? Weather Extremes Tied to Jet Stream ;
If you read the earlier post, you'll see it got a kudos from this corner. And while our AP man's topic was wild weather, in the days since that story ran things have gone thermally crazy in parts of central and desert California and much or most of Arizona, Nevada, and New Mexico. I know a little about it, second-hand. Our son has broken, for now anyway, from his good-paying career as a Manhattan banker to buy a new car (first one he's ever owned, Ford Fusion hybrid) and do the Tour of the Lower 48, state by state till he's bagged'em all. And wouldn't you know it he headed straight into the inferno. East from the California coast, visited a friend in Modesto, and beelined for Death Valley and a brief intersection iwth his sister and her family. It was 115 but you expect that there (since then it's neared 130). He's now done Arizona including the Phoenix area and Tucson with the Four Corners in his rear view mirror by now. That's to be followed by a winding route north to south through New Mexico. West Texas is coming up. He messaged his basic impression. "An oven." Good thing he got a brand new car. Hope the tires don't melt.
Back to the post. Here's one of Borenstein's stories this week on that very oven…
- AP (Jul 1) Seth Borenstein: Why this heat wave's so scary and what's behind it ; A stark contrast to last week's feature-explainer. Nuts and bolts FAQ is its backbone. It explains that while the daily highs, reaching far into triple digits Fahrenheit, get the top attention a stranger, worse corollary is that nighttime lows are not at all low, often staying above 90. This is a deadly public health hazard, he writes. One big reason for it is the wavy jet stream on which he built last week's more discursive account. The US is in one of the biggest, loopiest departures ever seen in the north polar jet stream, taking away from its historic habit of running pretty steadily west to east, has sent it looping nearly to Mexico. And it is more or less stuck, trapping a heat-concentrating high pressure area to its west while just slight to the east Texas and the midwest are cooler than average and the east is stormy. It is not the intensity of the heat that is setting records, but the stubborness is far above the norm. Includes mention of the elite wildfire fighting team killed almost to the man by Arizona's Yarnell Hill Fire.
After hitting it hard last week, Borenstein does not long dwell in this second piece on fingerprints of global warming. It comes up deep into the story. And, in the course of mentioning the jet stream and global warming tie-ins, he stresses that those explanations are attractive but could easily collapse with more data and analysis. Darned science. All those caveats and alternative hypotheses!
A Few Other Southwest Heatwave Stories:
- NPR – Bill Chappell: Heat Wave Will Bake Southwest For Most Of This Week;
- NBC – Fritz Coleman: Record-toppling heat heads north, and it's 'just going to get hotter' ; 117 in Las Vegas. One would think a 'monsoon flow' into the region is good news, but it might just worsen things with 'dry lightning' ; Keep watching for national news segment on the firefighting crew and its fatal encounter with a gusty blowup.
- USA Today – Doug Stanglin: Western USA staggers under massive heat wave; 1 dead ;
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