Midwest hit with extreme weather

from Montana to Texas millions of Americans are still under heat advisories as the heat Dome stretches to cover more of the Midwest and Northeast here's Susan Elizabeth Littlefield from our Minneapolis station WCCO oppressive high temperatures are hovering over the Midwest it's pretty hot it's cooking it felt like 100 degrees in Minneapolis today everyone always thinks of a cold but the Summers get really hot and humid too in the southwest temperatures in Phoenix have been at or above 110 degrees for 27 days Texas and surrounding states reported a spike in heat related hospitalizations this month heat is especially a concern for agriculture workers like TJ coffee these animals they're they're our livelihood we have to make sure that they're safe and Alive the heat wave stretching all the way to Florida Christian Benavides is in Miami Beach monitoring water temperatures in South Florida the water is so hot Beast goers say it's just not cooling them off they say it's like a hot tub 50 miles south of here in the upper Florida Keys water temperatures hit 101.1 degrees if confirmed it could be the highest sea surface temperature ever recorded researchers are worried about the damage to the fragile coral reefs most importantly in South Florida we lose that protection that barrier from hurricanes outside Atlanta High School football practice has already started for the Brookwood Broncos it was above 92 then we shut down practice altogether we go inside we get in the air conditioning and so our players are safe Susan Elizabeth Littlefield joins me now so give us a sense in Minneapolis and other parts of the Midwest how things are right now relative to the way they would normally be in summer yes John it's definitely intense around here for some perspective right now the temperature is about 15 degrees above the average temperature for what it should be this time of year so significantly higher so we're talking the warmer temperatures and then the other Factor that's really different is the air quality alerts we keep getting them from the Canadian Wildfire so when you couple both of those factors together it's been tough for people to really spend too much time outside and as you can imagine it's cold here a lot of the year so people want to enjoy the summer as someone who spent his summers in Minnesota it's the place you go in the summer because it's so nice and cool do folks know how to prepare for the incoming thunderstorms and just severe weather that's associated with all of this exactly well I'm glad to know first of all that you appreciate a Minnesota summer but yes so we're used to extreme weather here usually when you talk to us on a national level we're talking about the cold temperatures but on the flip side the power companies they're used to reacting to ice storms things like that they have sort of Switched their mode Into Summer mode Excel Energy the big power company around here has extra Crews on hand because thunderstorms are coming in they don't want the AC to be knocked out and people to be in danger just like in the winter when they're in danger because of the heat so yes they've kind of flipped Into Summer mode and they are on standby because this is serious weather indeed Susan Elizabeth Littlefield in Minneapolis good to talk to you thank you

Channel: CBS News

Views: 30,443

Keywords: Heat Wave, U.S., Climate Watch

Id: sfuYcvBkFco

Length: 3min 27sec (207 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 26 2023