Key Facts Of The Day 08/23

Hurricanes

• Heavy downpours will strike Louisiana, southeast Texas, and southern Arkansas on Tuesday morning.
  • In Shreveport, Louisiana, residents are already wading through up to 7 inches of rain from the past 24 hours.
  • On Wednesday morning, the heavy rain will continue in eastern Louisiana and reach Mississippi, where 10 inches of rain is possible over the next 48 hours.
• Government meteorologists issued flood warnings for more than 13 million people after torrential rainfall created life-threatening conditions in a region including northeast Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Arizona, and New Mexico.
• A state of disaster was declared Monday night in Dallas County, Texas after heavy rain triggered flash flooding. 
  • A 60-year-old woman died when her car was swept away in floodwaters.
  • East Dallas recorded 15.31 inches of rain.
  • Dallas Fort Worth International Airport saw 9.19 inches of rain over 24 hours, the highest in 90 years.
  • Dallas usually sees a total of 8 inches of rain throughout the entire summer.
  • In some areas, the rainfall would qualify as a 1-in-1,000-year flood.
• On Monday, Arizona issued evacuation orders in the rural town of Duncan after the water level of the Gila River got so high that it overwhelmed a levee and spilled into the town.
• On Sunday, an approximately 20-mile stretch of Colorado’s main east-west highway, Interstate 70, was temporarily closed because of the risk of flooding and mudslides from forecast storms in Glenwood Canyon.
• Flooding in Moab, Utah, the gateway to Arches National Park, closed trails in the city on Saturday night as crews assessed the damage.
• Authorities have been searching for days for an Arizona woman reported missing after being swept away by floodwaters in Utah’s Zion National Park on Friday.
  • All the hikers except one were found on high ground and stranded until water levels receded.
• Authorities said several rivers and streams in New Mexico have nearly reached historic flood levels not seen since the 1960s due to recent heavy rainfall.
  • Nearly 200 hikers had to be rescued in New Mexico, where flooded roads left them stranded in Carlsbad Caverns National Park.
    • Flooding in parks like Zion and Carlsbad Caverns can transform canyons, slick rocks, and normally dry washes into deadly channels of fast-moving water and debris in mere minutes.
• On Friday, emergency crews rescued four hikers stranded in Sabino Canyon in Arizona and helped 41 students and staff from Marana off school buses that got stuck in high water when the storms began to move in.
• For Nevada, recent storms have given the Las Vegas metro area its wettest monsoon season in 10 years.

Wildfires

• As of Tuesday, there are currently 42 large active wildfires that have burned 415,323 across AK, CA, ID, MT, NC, ND, OR, UT, WA, and WY. As of Tuesday, 43,720 wildfires have burned 5,998,141 acres across the country.
• In Alaska, 5 fires have burned 152,146 acres as of Tuesday.
• In California, 5 fires have burned 95,874 acres as of Tuesday.
  • The McKinney Fire has burned 60,138 acres and is 95% contained as of Tuesday.
• In Idaho, 11 fires have burned 115,732 acres as of Tuesday.
• In Montana, 9 fires have burned 18,903 acres as of Tuesday.
• In North Carolina, 1 fire has burned 1,226 acres as of Tuesday.
• In North Dakota, 1 fire has burned 4,000 acres as of Tuesday.
• In Oregon, 6 fires have burned 10,910 acres as of Tuesday.
• In Utah, 1 fire has burned 11,702 acres as of Tuesday.
• In Washington, 2 fires have burned 1,905 acres as of Tuesday.
• In Wyoming, 1 fire has burned 2,925 acres as of Tuesday.

Extreme Heat

• California, as well as the rest of the country, will see increased heat over the next 30 years.
  • According to First Street Foundation’s new report, Los Angeles County will experience triple the number of hot days per year by 2053.
    • Los Angeles County is up there with Del Norte and Orange counties as the areas in California that will see the most severe jump in hot days.
    • The increase will result in freak infrastructure accidents and cost the state more than half a billion dollars in air conditioning consumption.
  • In 2053, California’s Imperial County is expected to have 116 days in which the temperature exceeds 100 degrees.
  • In 2053, Riverside County is expected to have 55 days of triple-digit heat.
• Extreme drought cuts into Montana rancher’s profits
  • In 2021, a severe drought dramatically reduced both the quantity and quality of rancher Walter Schweitzer’s hay crop which he uses to feed his cattle and sells to other ranchers. 
  • This past spring, drought conditions continued, and he was worried he would not have enough hay and grass to feed his cattle later in the season. 
  • Schweitzer sold off more than 150 heads earlier than he ordinarily would have, which cut into profits.
• There are few rules that address heat in the nation’s prison cells.
  • Many prison facilities are old and lack air conditioning, exposing prisoners to dangerous temperatures.
  • The issue is urgent in Massachusetts because there are no regulations capping the temperatures in the state’s prisons, and people inside are wilting in the heat.
  • At Bridgewater State Hospital, the Massachusetts facility for men suffering from mental illness, there are no air conditioners in patient rooms.

New Reports and Data

• An August 2022 study found that Switzerland’s glaciers lost half their volume between 1931 and 2016.
• An August 2022 study found that climate change is a growing threat to marine species all over the world, but the level of warming matters a great deal.