East Coast Cities Experiencing the Worst Heat Waves Right Now

Weather

Published: July 15, 2024 9:50 am

More than 100 million people were under heat alerts from coast-to-coast on Saturday as the long-duration heat wave continued. And according to forecasts, a new round of heat will build in the eastern United States through Tuesday. During this heat wave, which will be combined with high humidity, some areas might see record highs set in the 1800s.

In the Tri-State area, temperatures will likely reach the mid 90s degrees Fahrenheit and even get close to 100 degrees inland. Heat indices will likely soar even higher, into the 105-110 degrees range.

To determine the East Coast cities experiencing the worst heat waves right now, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed county-level data on daily average temperature from the NOAA’s nClimGrid-Daily program. County seats were ranked based on the raw differential in average daily temperature from the period July 1-6, 1981-2010 to July-16, 2024. Only county seats with at least 10,000 residents were considered. Data on population is from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2022 American Community Survey.

It is important to emphasize that our list only considers the deviation from normal temperatures — how much hotter current temperatures are compared to historic normals (rather than how high the temperatures are). Also, the list only considers the week of 1-6 July, and some records have been broken since.

Cities in six states comprise the list, but 32 of them are in Georgia. Another nine are in Alabama, four are in Vermont, three in New Hampshire, and one each in New York state and Maine. (While these cities are all on the East Coast, see nationwide the Cities Experiencing The Worst Heat Waves Right Now.)

The smallest deviation from historic normal temperature among the 50 cities on the list was in Prattville, Alabama, where temperatures averaged 84.5 degrees in the first week of July, or 4.3 degrees hotter than normal. The largest deviation was in Carrollton, Georgia, where temperatures averaged 82.4 degrees but were 5.7 degrees hotter than normal for that week.

The largest city on the list is Atlanta, which ranks 15th on the list. Temperatures in this metropolitan, home to nearly half a million residents in the city proper alone, averaged 82.8 degrees during July 1 to July 6, or 5.3 degrees hotter than normal for that time. Athens, Georgia, and Portland, Maine, are the next largest cities experiencing considerably hotter temperatures than their normal.

As noted, this list is not about the highest temperatures reached but about the highest deviation from the normals. Indeed, all the cities in New England states and New York did not reach particularly high temperatures, but they deviated considerably from their historic averages. For example, in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, temperatures averaged a much cooler 68.7 degrees during the first week of July, but that was 4.4 degrees hotter than normal for the city. Also 4.4 degrees hotter than normal were average temperatures in Ballston Spa, New York, which reached a very pleasant 72.5 degrees but that was considerably hotter than historic normal of 68.2 degrees for the city.

Why this matters

A hot wave, also known as a heatwave, occurs when temperatures soar significantly above the average for a prolonged period, often leading to health risks, power outages, and increased wildfire hazards

Climate change is worsening all kinds of extreme weather globally, but much of it is related to heat — as heat fuels other types of extreme weather. Scientists’ analysis found that certain extreme heat waves last year indeed could not have been possible without climate change. Add to that the fact that extreme heat is the deadliest form of weather globally, and population exposure to extreme heat is increasing. One way to understand this is by looking at the deviation of temperatures from normal historic temperatures.