A historic heatwave has ravaged the Pacific Northwest as 233 people are confirmed dead in the Canadian Province of British Columbia. Temperatures have reached 115 degrees Fahrenheit.

The Vancouver Police Department said in a statement that additional officers have been dispatched to deal with the impact of the heatwave. The department said it has responded to over 100 sudden deaths.

The heatwave shattered a record from July 1937, when temperatures hit 113 degrees in Saskatchewan.

American cities have been suffering just as much with similar temperatures in Oregon and Washington. This historic heatwave is said to be a once-in-a-millennium event.

In some cities, asphalt is cracking and power cables are being melted because of the extreme heat. Temperatures this time of year typically are in the 70s.

There is an extremely dangerous number for people who are not used to this kind of heat, and many of them not having air conditioning. Seattle has broken its record for high temperatures three days in a row. The city previously hit 100 degrees only three times in its history.

Some cities in eastern Washington and Oregon are expected to max out in the 115-120 degree range and the heatwave is expected to continue late into the week. For the past week, computer models have been forecasting unbelievable numbers that meteorologists cannot wrap their heads around. With the effects of climate change, these extreme heatwaves will become routine.

“We will continue to see more and more extreme heatwaves, droughts, wildfires, and floods as long as we continue to warm the planet by burning fossil fuels and carbon emissions,” said Dr. Michael Mann. If humanity continues to burn fossil fuels then by 2100, we can expect a 7 to 10-degree increase in temperatures which would mean a dramatic increase in extreme heatwaves.

According to CBS News, this unprecedented phenomenon is being referred to as “heat dome,” which is when a mountain of warm air built into a wavy jet stream with extreme undulations. When a band of strong winds in the upper levels of the atmosphere becomes wavy and elongated, pressure systems can become stuck in places they usually won’t be.

The ridge of high pressure logged in the Pacific Northwest is acting as a block in the atmosphere and it won’t allow the weather to move. The reason why the temperatures are so extreme is that areas of high pressure have sinking air. This leads to the air being compressed and the compression heats the air column. Winds are also moving downslope from the mountains into cities causing heating as well.

Scientists have found links between wavy jet streams which cause more extreme heatwaves, storms, and floods. The wavy jet stream forces the warm air north and the cold air south. It slows down the forward pace of the systems, thus adding more instability to the atmosphere causing more extreme impacts.

Canada California