Climate Impact Report – 9/21

Quick Facts

An area of developing low pressure off the Florida coastline is expected to sweep up the Southeast coast and make landfall in the Mid-Atlantic this weekend.
- The subtropical system will bring plentiful rainfall, rough surf, strong gusty winds, coastal flooding, and significant rainfall, affecting most major East Coast cities.
- Tropical storm warnings have been issued from Cape Fear, North Carolina, to the Delaware-Maryland border on the Delmarva Peninsula and for the Chesapeake Bay south of Smith Point.
- The system appears likely to acquire subtropical characteristics and earn the name Ophelia.
- The storm is expected to be located several hundred miles offshore of North Carolina on Friday afternoon and then make landfall on or skim very close to the Outer Banks during the first few hours of Saturday.

As of Wednesday, 62 large active wildfires have burned 487,857 acres across 11 states: AZ, CA, CO, ID, LA, MT, NM, OR, TX, UT, and WA. This year to date, 43,244 wildfires have burned 2,197,812 acres across the country.
In Arizona, 3 fires have burned 5,782 acres as of Wednesday.
In California, 6 fires have burned 162,654 acres as of Wednesday.
- Air quality reached unhealthy levels in the Bay Area after winds brought down wildfire smoke from northwestern California and southwestern Oregon.
In Colorado, 4 fires have burned 9,809 as of Wednesday.
In Louisiana, 4 fires have burned 42,827 acres as of Wednesday.
In New Mexico, 2 fires have burned 18,461 acres as of Wednesday.
In Oregon, 12 fires have burned 120,850 acres as of Wednesday.
In Texas, 1 fire has burned 400 acres as of Wednesday.
In Washington, 7 fires have burned 16,096 acres as of Wednesday.

Extreme heat and chronic health issues are killing elderly New Yorkers.
- In New York City, about 350 people die from hot weather annually.
- In New York City, people older than 60 had the highest rate of heat-stress deaths.
  - Nearly all had at least one chronic health condition, lived in disproportionately Black or Latino and low-income neighborhoods, and most didn’t have AC.
Climate change is making bakeries even hotter.
- Extreme heat can cause many problems for a bakery, ranging from life-threatening health conditions among its workers to inferior products and lost revenue.
The drought is stressing trees and causing them to turn brown in Austin, Texas.

A September 2023 study found that almost half of koala habitats will be under high bushfire threat by 2070.
A September 2023 study found that climate change can alter the risk of succumbing to infectious diseases.