Welcome back everybody in unrelenting heatwave
continuing to scorch the pacific northwest area right
now, Tuesday's all record high temperatures in Seattle
and Olympia Washington. Meteorologist Scott Withers is
in Seattle now with the latest Hey Scott, how's it
going? Yeah, good morning Alex. We're here at Pike's
place, Farmer's Market, This is that famous place where
they, you know, they toss the fish, Well, they're using
extra ice back there to keep those fish cool because of
the heat wave. And it's not just here all across
Seattle, there is a surge in demand for ice because the
temperatures are in the ninetie and there's not a lot
of air conditioning here in this city to the south of
us in Oregon, in Portland's temperatures over 10
There's now two heat related deaths in that state. And
the National Weather service is saying this heatwave,
well, it's going to last longer than expected all the
way through the weekend and it's gonna be hotter than
they had forecast. The sun bearing down on Seattle's
pike Place, farmers market pushing up the temperatures
as tourists and residents look for some relief from the
heat wave. Remember summer bein two weeks at the end
of august Serena Williams is a nanny, her apartment,
like most homes here doesn't have air conditioning,
she improvises. I know this sounds a yankee or
whatever, you put a bowl of ice in front of a fan or
you put a wet t shirt on and you sit in front of the
can or you know, unfortunately that's, it's what
income people have to do, I guess city and King County
leaders opening cooling centers for the vulnerable
senior citizens and the homeles don't get a lot of
extreme cold or extreme heat. So more than two thirds
of our homes have no central air. So it's when it
becomes hot, there are very limited options for people
to get out of the heat. It's just not something.
region has been, has the infrastructure to support.
Only 44% of homes here have a seat in Portland Oregon
where it's even hotter. About 80% of homes there have
cooling systems which is much less than the national
average. Summer campers in Portland are playing in the
shade and drinking extra water. As many cities in the
state set new high temperature records in the trip
digits. We knew that the heat was coming and we did
plan for, we've got plenty of water on hand. We double
check the shade in terms of the park area and where the
shady spots are. The National weather service increa
and extended the extreme heat warnings for a large part
of the pacific Northwest Landscapers in Portland's will
be outside working in near or above 100° temperatures
all through the weekend, committing to making sure
we've got water in everybody's hands and road crew
will feel the mid 90 degree heat in Seattle now thro
Saturday. This is the second heat wave to grip the
region all year. Last summer, 800 people in Washingto
state Oregon and British Columbia. Canada died during a
heat wave. The heat is causing air quality issues.
Ozone alerts have been issued for areas all around
Seattle's puget sound. The National Weather Service has
looked at the historical heat data for Seattle dating
back all the way to 1945. They found 246 days in that
time have been over 90 degrees. And Alex 100 of those
days have been in the last two decades. So this part of
the country this region, the climate is changing.
They're getting more heat days during the summer, but
residents say that's still not enough to put out all
the money to include air conditioning in their house
or apartments. So Scott when it comes to the cooling
aspect, do they ever cool down at all? I mean we know
that it gets really, really hot during the middle of
the day but what about at night time? Okay so it does
cool down at night time. It's you know, 4 30 in the
morning right now it's about 70 degrees here but it
doesn't start cooling down it really until about one
a.m. That's when it gets below that 70 degree mark
because your body needs to be below 70. So you can, you
know it can recoup all of the damage from the day
before the problem is one a.m. To about seven a.m. Is
when it starts cooling down and then it starts picking
back up, so there's not a lot of time there for it to
below that 70 degrees. So we're talking about a 30
degree swing pretty quickly.