Warnings of heat in places on Sunday include heat warnings, excessive heat monitoring and excessive heat warnings. Cities recommended for heat include El Paso, Dallas and Houston in Texas, along with Oklahoma City, Kansas City, New Orleans and Nashville. Cities with overheating warnings include San Antonio and Austin, Texas; Tulsa, Oklahoma; and Phoenix and Tucson in Arizona.
Sunday will be the last day of record heat in the southwest, before a strong cold front is expected to pass through the region, cooling temperatures to more seasonal values, as summer officially remains after nine days.
But high temperatures in the southern and central plains will remain in three digits, with thermal index (or “feel”) values approaching 115 degrees Fahrenheit in parts of Texas and Oklahoma on Sunday afternoon.
“The combination of hot temperatures and high humidity will combine to create a dangerous situation in which heat diseases are possible,” said the office of the National Meteorological Service in Tulsa.
This heat will continue to increase, spreading north and east at the beginning of the half of the week. Record heat will spread to the central plains through the Mississippi Valley and Carolina on Monday, and by Tuesday the heat will spread from the Midwest to the Carolinas.
Several places broke Saturday’s daily highs, including Death Valley in California, one of the hottest places on Earth. Temperatures there reached 122 degrees Fahrenheit, beating their previous record of June 11, set in 1921, which was 121 degrees.
Elsewhere, Roswell, New Mexico, hit 111 degrees, breaking its previous daily record of 106 degrees set in 2008. And Denver International Airport reached 100 degrees, not only equaling its daily record set in 2013. but also leveled the day at the earliest in a calendar year, when it reached 100 degrees.
More than 230 million people – over 70% of the lower 48 – will see temperatures of 90 or more next week.
More than 45 million of these people, or about 15% of the population of the lower 48, will experience three-digit temperatures next week, mostly in the Southwest Desert and the southern and central plains.
This means that at least 140 cities can set new daily high records from Sunday to Wednesday: Most of Monday’s record temperatures will extend between Denver and Raleigh, North Carolina, but could spread north to Wisconsin and Michigan until the middle of the week. And Chicago could reach the top in the top 90 on Tuesday and Wednesday.
And the low levels for one night, which usually allow the human body to cool down adequately, can be as relentless as the daily highs.
“Your body needs cooling at night and is actually expecting it while you sleep,” said Jen Varian, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s Las Vegas office.
“When we have very hot temperatures at night, your body is simply not able to cool down properly, which in itself can cause complications, but it will set you up to be less prepared for the heat of the day.”
CNN’s Dakin Andone contributed to this report.
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