AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jon Porter explains how the boom in the Phoenix metro population has effected the temperature over the years.
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00:00 Today is easily going to be another 110 plus degree day in Phoenix here.
00:05 So today will be day 22 in a row, going back to the very end of June, in which we've had a string of days hitting 110 plus in the big city.
00:12 What a stretch, and not only has it been extremely hot during the day, but these overnight low temperatures have remained very elevated as well,
00:19 and that accumulates lots of heat stress and increases the risk that people face.
00:23 Absolutely, yeah, in a big, big way with these lows near 100 degrees.
00:27 A lot has changed in Phoenix over the past 70 or 80 years.
00:30 Sure has. Take a look at the population growth that has occurred over recent decades.
00:35 Sometimes 35 percent growth over 10-year periods.
00:39 More recently, about 10 percent more people at each check-in on the census.
00:44 So many people are moving to the Phoenix metro area, Jeff, and experiencing extreme heat, this time perhaps for the first time in their life there.
00:53 Now there have been a couple of huge heat waves, significant benchmarks in the past in Phoenix.
00:58 We have 1974, 1990, 1995, but the one that we're currently dealing with now is pretty significant.
01:05 It sure is. This really stands out on the new exclusive AccuWeather Heat Wave Counter and Severity Index,
01:12 which quantifies and measures the duration and intensity of heat.
01:16 Look at this, 65 on our AccuWeather scale, and when you look at other heat waves, number 2, all the way back to 1895,
01:25 this is a long period of record, 36, that's almost two times as intense as the number 2 heat wave.
01:32 So this is a big deal, Jeff, and this is a new, unique tool that AccuWeather has in order to be able to describe the risk to people that heat waves pose.
01:41 And John, I wanted to move on to the next graphic here, because we have a couple of slider comparisons of how things have changed here.
01:48 Here's a little slice of the Phoenix metro. We talked about the population growth.
01:51 You can see a lot of agricultural land, but comparing 2000, not that long ago, with where we are now.
01:56 No, it's amazing that the urbanization that has happened. Of course, more people have moved there.
02:01 New subdivisions have been built, new industrial areas.
02:04 And take a look at the difference here on these two graphics between 2000, this is all agriculture fields and other uses,
02:12 now industrial areas and subdivisions.
02:15 All of this means that there's more heat that builds up here as these other structures, these concrete sidewalk buildings, stucco,
02:24 it all absorbs incoming radiation and creates a more intense heat wave.