Every summer, high temperatures impact public health across large swathes of the United States, causing a spike in emergency room visits and hundreds of heat-related deaths. As temperatures rise, CNN is tracking extreme heat conditions and potential risks to Americans every day.
To help Americans prepare for dangerous temperatures, the National Weather Service and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention produce national forecasts that predict heat-related risks.
This takes into account the predicted severity and extremes of the heat and its potential duration, as well as possible impacts on residents of a particular location based on CDC data on past impacts, such as deaths.
This map shows the latest forecast.
The National Weather Service also produces multi-day apparent temperature forecasts that account for other factors like wind and humidity to explain how it “feels” outside.
This map is updated every morning and shows the forecast for the entire continental United States for the next three days.
CNN also uses this national forecast map to derive “feel-like temperature” forecasts for more than 800 U.S. cities with populations of more than 50,000 people. Search here:
A large portion of the U.S. population lives in areas that are subject to heat advisories, warnings, and watches from the National Weather Service this year. According to data released by the service, an average of more than 60 million people endured such conditions in the summer of 2023.
As the planet warms, heat waves are now more frequent, more intense and last longer, and temperatures are rising more rapidly at night, but they are not cooling enough to be alleviated.
As temperatures rise, heat records will also fall.
Every day, the Bureau of Meteorology releases forecasts for potentially record-breaking temperatures for locations across the country. Here’s where high temperature records could be broken over the next three days.
Forecasters at the National Weather Service are also trying to predict average temperatures across the country in the coming weeks. This map shows the likelihood that areas of the continental United States will experience above, below, or near normal average temperatures.
Darker shades represent areas where average temperatures are likely to be higher or lower than normal. Gray areas are expected to be close to normal.
The predictions are often correct and new daily high temperature records are set. The map highlights locations across the continental United States where temperatures exceeded calendar day records, according to the Southeastern Regional Climate Center.
