The main purpose of this ongoing blog will be to track planetary extreme, or record temperatures related to climate change. Any reports I see of ETs will be listed below the main topic of the day. I’ll refer to extreme or record temperatures as ETs (not extraterrestrials).😉
Main Topic: The Rise of Western Heatwave Occidental
Dear Diary. A severe heatwave has been building all week long across the U.S. West and now has met my criteria for a name, in this case the first of the 2025 season, Occidental. Thankfully, this Category three system will peak today then quickly moderate on Sunday and Monday.
The system has met my criteria for a CAT3 because it consists of areas needing NWS heat warnings, and daily records are being threatened or broken. More here:
Here is the state of the western heat dome, which is peaking on this Saturday:
A 590-decameter ridge over the West in late May would not be unprecedented but rare.
By Monday the western ridge collapses with what is left of the thing moving into the Plains:
We will see if heat dissipates enough to declare Occidental dead early next week once June begins.
As far as how hot temperatures in portions of the West are getting, here is a list of records from Friday 5/30/2025:
I will be adding record data from this Saturday 5/31/2025 to this post.
Today is the last day of May so we have a long warm season ahead of us. Occidental is the first major U.S. heatwave of 2025 but probably won’t be the last or even the most severe of this season…all thanks to climate change.
Here are more “ETs” recorded from around the planet the last couple of days, their consequences, and some extreme temperature outlooks, as well as any extreme precipitation reports:
Here is More Climate News from Saturday:
(As usual, this will be a fluid post in which more information gets added during the day as it crosses my radar, crediting all who have put it on-line. Items will be archived on this site for posterity. In most instances click on the pictures of each tweet to see each article. The most noteworthy items will be listed first.)