Tuesday, June 29, 2021
extreme weather in canada
“Heat Dome” Costs Human Life
Historical weather records are currently falling in Canada. The province of British Columbia has now measured about 48 °C. The heat will continue in the coming days as well. Police appeals to people to take care of each other.
A record high heat wave has contributed to the deaths in western Canada, according to police. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said that over a 24-hour period, officers followed more than 25 reports of sudden deaths. It added that extreme heat is seen as a contributing cause in most cases. Many elderly people are also among the dead.
The police called on the population to pay special attention to risk groups. “It’s important that we take care of each other in this scorching heat,” said Mike Kalanj, a Vancouver area police spokesman. Several air-conditioned centers have been set up in the west coast metropolis where people can take shelter from the heat.
Lytton, Canada (province of British Columbia), measured 47.9 degrees on Monday, the local weather authority tweeted. Accordingly, this was the highest temperature in the history of the country. The values are preliminary and may still be updated, it said on the website of the responsible authority. At the same time, in Midale (Saskatchewan), the centuries-old record of 45 degrees since 1937 was crossed on Sunday with 46.6 degrees.
In the affected areas of Canada, a heat warning remains in place for the weekend. “The heat here is like a desert,” said David Phillips, chief climate researcher at the Canadian Ministry of Environment. “We are the second coldest and snowiest country in the world,” he said. “We often see cold snaps and blizzards, but we are not used to such heat”. “It will be cold in Dubai now,” he said.
“Heat Dome” – only every few thousand years
Local record temperatures of more than 40 degrees were also measured in several places in North America, including the state of Oregon in the western United States. In the US metropolitan cities of Seattle (Washington State) and Portland (Oregon), which are generally known for their colder and wetter climates, temperatures climbed to 42.2 and 46.1 °C and thus the highest values in both cities since the season. reached at. Records began in 1940. The US Weather Service warned that the dangerous heat was likely to continue through the middle of the week.
The phenomenon of “heat dome” is responsible for extreme heat, meaning that high pressure in the atmosphere keeps warm air in the region. According to Washington Post meteorologists, this heat dome intensity is “statistically so rare that it can only be expected on average once every few thousand years”. However, man-made climate change “made these types of extraordinary events more probable”.
