Get used to this brutal heat. Future summers in North Texas are expected to get hotter
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Deadly heat
How to stay safe in a blazing North Texas summer.
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Deadliest weather? You’re in it. How to stay safe in a blazing North Texas summer
Here’s how to get your body adjusted to the heat in Fort Worth this summer
Get used to this brutal heat. Future summers in North Texas are expected to get hotter
Heat stroke, exhaustion are serious business in Texas. Here’s what you need to know
So far this summer, emergency responders have already responded to 455 heat calls throughout the greater Fort Worth area.
That’s a 115.6% increase compared to the same time frame last summer, said Matt Zavadsky, the chief transformation officer at MedStar.
This summer is shaping up to be a particularly hot and dry one, according to people who have been tracking and forecasting the summer’s temperatures.
The effects are already wide ranging: In addition to making normal summer pastimes stickier and sweatier, the summer heat is affecting Parker County’s famous peach crop, pushed the start time of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra’s outdoor concerts to later in the evening, and is driving up energy bills as air conditioning units strain to keep homes cool.
The highs have been so unrelenting that some are worried it could ultimately rival the summer of 2011 in Texas, when hundreds of people died.
Climate scientists agree that hotter and longer summers will be a part of life.
“I think you can say quite confidently it’s going to get hotter every year for the rest of our lives, and for the rest of our kids’ lives,” said Andrew Dessler, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University. “Unless, you know, an asteroid hits the planet or a mega volcano erupts. Barring something like that, we’re very certain it’s going to get worse.”
Last year, a report from Texas State Climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon found that by 2036, the expected number of 100 degree days will double compared to the average between 2001 and 2020. And these triple-digit days will be more frequent in urban areas like Fort Worth, because of the urban heat island effect, according to Nielsen-Gammon’s report.
The adjustments Texans are making this summer will continue in future summers.
“There are quality of life impacts from heat,” said Ladd Keith, assistant professor in the School of Landscape Architecture and Planning at the University of Arizona. “It could be shifting exercise or forgoing exercise altogether, limiting kids’ ability to play on playgrounds because it’s just too hot for them to go outside.”
Making life more bearable in the summer will take large-scale investments and changes in infrastructure, experts said. Updating building codes to make sure homes and businesses are better insulated, changing the materials that buildings and roads are built, and increasing trees and other green space could help reduce the amount of heat that is trapped in the cities during the summer and make it easier to keep indoor spaces cool.
“Our ability to manage heat depends not just on the temperature, it depends on our infrastructure. It depends on our collective actions to protect people when the temperatures go up,” said Kristie Ebi, a professor of global health at the University of Washington. “People live in just amazingly hostile environments around the world.”
This story was originally published July 14, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
