Daily temperature records will tumble as sizzling early season heat from a summerlike heat dome sends thermometers skyrocketing into the triple digits in parts of California and the West this week.

The official start of summer is just a few weeks away, but it will feel like July in much of the West as temperatures climb 20 degrees or more above average, the highest temperatures of the year so far for many locations.

Excessive heat warnings are in effect for more than 17 million people in California, Nevada, Utah and Arizona this week. The warnings are the most extreme form of heat alert issued by the National Weather Service and are used when widespread, dangerous heat is expected.

The soaring temperatures are being caused by a heat dome, a large area of high pressure that parks over an area, traps air and heats it with abundant sunshine for days or weeks. The resulting heat becomes more intense the longer a heat dome lasts.

  • archomrade [he/him]
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    6 months ago

    I have a lot to say about how partisan politics turns decent people into rabid sociopaths who cheer for the violent deaths of people who fall on the other side of an arbitrary distinction, but I’m afraid saying so might put you squarely inside the picture you’ve just painted.

    • buddascrayon@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      partisan politics

      arbitrary distinction

      Oh, you mean the who “both sides are terrible” argument? Let us see. One side thinks we should invest as much government money as we can into education, the other wants to gut every dime and put all kids (who can afford it) into private schools. One side wants to ensure that children do not go hungry, the other is canceling student lunch programs everywhere they can. And, to the point of this thread, one side wants us to acknowledge our hand in climate change and find a way to mitigate it, the other wants to pretend it doesn’t exist.

      I’m not a radical for believing what I believe because what I believe is based in scientific fact and compassion for humanity. The “other side of the coin” is afraid that their tax money might, at some point, help a poor person in need.

      Fuck your moderate ass. People like you are half the problem.

      • archomrade [he/him]
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        6 months ago

        It’s genuinely a bit shocking being called a moderate on a platform where I routinely get accused of being a tankie, and even more shocking to realize that I find the former to be more offensive somehow.

        I’ll say the same to you as I would any blood-thirsty liberal: no war but class war. I don’t root for the deaths of my fellow working class americans simply because I suspect them of having supported a political movement based on a false premise, no matter how much their politics repulse me.

        So go off I guess, but just be aware that while you’re sitting where you are thinking of me as a part of the problem, I’m thinking the same of people like you who wish death and destruction against people who are under the same marginalization as you are.

        • buddascrayon@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          I’m thinking the same of people like you who wish death and destruction against people who are under the same marginalization as you are.

          Except the difference is I’m not voting for it. They actively choose to vote for the marginalization. They’re happy to be slaves to their corporate masters.

          And yeah, I do a hoop and a holler every damn time somebody dies a fucking covid when their Facebook page and every bit of social media they’re on is telling everybody in the universe how much they won’t use PPE or get vaccinated and will vote for politicians who tell everyone that the covid vaccine is some kind of poison.

          I sing a song of praise to all the karma in the universe when one of these fucktards who thinks that global warming is a fucking conspiracy to push everyone into green energy for profit somehow dies of heat stroke or freezes to death because global warming is turning our climate pair shaped.

          And I jump for fucking joy when a shitty old person who has consistently voted for a republican who has, yet again, gutted medicare and social security cries about being left in the cold with no money and no medical care. Cause FUCK every single one of them. They can rot in hell cause they are the cause of not only their own suffering, but everyone else’s as well.

          • Ookami38@sh.itjust.works
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            6 months ago

            You realize the entire political system is a game right? And it’s rigged? Realistically the Republican party has a 0% chance to get elected ever, if we just go based on popular vote. The average citizen has roughly 0 influence on the election, with how heavily gerrymandered districts are, with how heavily certain areas are “encouraged” not to vote…

            The people in Texas don’t want you to be in a heat wave either, in general. Only the mega rich who have no skin in this game, who can fly out to whatever tropical paradise has the best climate this time of year. And the ones who say they DO want that are, 9 times out of 10, just parroting whatever their favorite billionaire wants them to.

            I support anger, I support aggression. Make our voices heard, but aim it at the right people. Fighting internally is what they want us to do.