(Washington) After having weighed down the center of the United States, a heat wave was heading east on Monday, according to the meteorological services, raising fears of potentially dangerous temperatures for the most fragile and devastating bad weather.
Posted at 4:13 p.m.
The “heat dome” resulted in early heat records in several western and central cities last week. In the Northwest regions, the heat collided with cool air masses, causing severe thunderstorms and flooding.
“Dangerous heat will continue to dominate the headlines from the central United States to the Southeast,” the National Weather Service (NWS) said.
“The center of the heat wave will head east on Tuesday, towards the Great Lakes region,” the NWS explained, with temperatures sometimes exceeding 35°C, “5 to 12 degrees higher than the seasonal normals. Chicago, the country’s third-largest metropolis, is expected to experience 37°C on Tuesday.
Nights will bring no comfort with mercury over 20C, forecasters say.
The heat will descend towards the Southeast on Wednesday, with up to 43°C on the coasts of the Gulf of Mexico, coupled with high humidity.
The North-East should remain spared by these weather conditions which caused torrential rains in the North-West and in the center of the country.
Yellowstone National Park, which closed its gates last week due to exceptional flooding, announced that it would reopen part of its entrances on Wednesday, but for a limited public.
Fire in the North East
The vast park of almost 9000 km2which straddles the states of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, will filter entries by organizing an even-odd system according to vehicle license plates and the day of the week.
This temporary system “will ensure that visitors can enter the park during this period of high demand”, explained Yellowstone officials on Facebook, adding that it would be reviewed “in three or four weeks”.
The park had been evacuated due to flooding caused by a swollen river and torrential rains, which led to cave-ins and mudslides, cutting off multiple sections of the road.
In Arizona, where there is a chronic drought, a fire threatens the Kitt Peak National Observatory and its telescopes.
The “Contreras Fire”, which broke out on June 11 south of Tucson, has already destroyed more than 8,000 hectares and four buildings in the center, but all the scientific structures of the observatory are “still standing”, according to its officials. .
“This is the most threatening fire for Mount Kitt in at least 25 years,” said ABC Buell Jannuzi, the head of the astronomy department at the University of Arizona, one of the institutions to use the telescopes. .
While fires are common in the American West, they are rarer in the Northeast, where a fire was raging Monday in the Wharton State Forest in New Jersey.
According to state firefighters, the flames have destroyed nearly 3,000 acres since Sunday and the blaze was 45% contained.
It destroyed 18 buildings, but caused no casualties.