A record heatwave hitting the western half of the United States shifted towards the central region on Saturday, bringing unusually high temperatures for the season to areas where it was freezing just a week ago.
Dozens of cities, from California to Colorado, recorded their highest temperatures ever observed in March, according to the National Weather Service.
On Saturday, regions setting new records for maximum temperatures in March included Kansas City in Missouri (central) and North Platte in Nebraska (central), where the temperature reached 33.3°C.
This unusual heatwave caused temperatures to spike within a few days.
For example, in Chanute, a small town in Kansas almost at the center of the United States, temperatures went from a record low of -10.5°C on March 16 to a record high of 32.8°C just four days later.
On Friday, the heatwave pushed temperatures up to 44.4°C in several regions along the southern border between California and Arizona (southwest), a national American record for March.
On Saturday, the National Weather Service issued an extreme heat alert for these desert regions, as well as a high risk of forest fires for a large part of the central plains states, Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma.
This record heatwave, affecting millions of Americans with temperatures exceeding seasonal averages by 17°C, would have been “almost impossible at this time of year in a world without climate change,” as determined by a report from the World Weather Attribution (WWA), a group of international scientists studying the links between extreme weather events and climate change.
Context: A heatwave in the United States broke temperature records in several states, raising concerns about the impact of climate change.
Fact Check: The World Weather Attribution group is a real organization of scientists studying the links between weather events and climate change.
