Today is Monday, June 17, 2024. The word for the week is heat, as a long-lasting and expansive heat wave fueled by an intense heat dome is under way for the Midwest and Northeast. This phenomenon is covered in an online CNN article by Mary Gilbert and Elizabeth Wolfe entitled “A heat wave not seen in decades will send temperatures soaring for more than half the US population.”

Record-breaking high temperatures will last into next week, ushering in the start of summer, Thursday, June 20, with this year’s most significant heat event yet.

Hundreds of records could be tied or broken this week as a massive heat dome parks over part of the East. Parts of the Midwest to the Northeast could endure the longest heat wave they’ve seen in decades, the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center said.

Those who will be affected by this sultry weather live as far north as Maine who aren’t used to heat this intense and who will be sweating in temperatures well into the 90s this week. It will feel even hotter than that as humidity helps drive heat index values – how temperatures feel to the body – into the low 100s.

An extreme heat risk is in place from the Great Lakes into the Northeast this week, according to the National Weather Service. Heat will reach dangerous levels in many places, including the major metropolitan areas of Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, New York City, and Boston.

Some areas, including Montpelier, Vermont; Syracuse, New York; and Pittsburgh haven’t seen heat like this in about three decades.

Some places have activated heat protocols to address the coming heat. Cooling centers will open across New York City starting Tuesday and cooling kits will be distributed to people working outdoors, Mayor Eric Adams said today. Burlington, Vermont, will also activate cooling centers starting tomorrow, according to the city.

Recreation centers in Cleveland will be open for extended hours this week to serve as cooling centers, city officials said today. The city also suspended all playground programs for the week as temperatures soar.

Heat domes like the one fueling this week’s intense conditions trap air in place and bake it with abundant sunshine for days on end, making each day hotter than the last. The ovenlike conditions mean overnight temperatures don’t cool down enough to offer relief for overheated bodies, posing increased risks for heat-related illness.

Humidity will also join forces with extreme heat to create triple-digit heat indices – measurements of how hot the human body feels – in some areas.

Parts of eastern New York and western New England could see indices as high as 107 degrees. It goes without saying that in such heat, it’s incumbent to limit strenuous outdoor activities, to stay hydrated, and to check up on neighbors who are elderly or don’t have air conditioning. As for me, if I find this weather too intolerable, I certainly won’t take my daily constitutional.

Something startling about this kind of weather phenomenon is that extreme heat is by far the deadliest form of severe weather, killing on average twice as many people a year as tornadoes and hurricanes combined.

Scientists have warned that heat waves will become increasingly severe as the climate crisis intensifies.

So the best thing to do now is to take it easy, stay hydrated, and stay out of the sun if at all possible. And hope this heat wave will eventually subside.

A very good online CNN opinion by Dean Obeidallah appeared today in which the host of SiriusXM radio program, “The Dean Obeidallah Show,” expresses the opinion that I agree with regard to the convicted felon known as Donald Duck, which is that we must not embrace the dim prospect of his winning the presidency but we must focus on rejecting him outright on November 5. There is no other strategy! We shouldn’t brace for a second Drumpf presidency at all. His piece is entitled “Opinion: Don’t focus on bracing for a Trump win.”

Obeidallah references an article published in The New York Times which described how a broad network of Democratic officials, progressive activists, and watchdog groups, among others, are “taking extraordinary steps to prepare for a potential second Trump presidency.”

In Obeidallah’s piece, he cites what those efforts are, but I want to cut to the chase, as he states that a second Dump presidency would be more awful, more ghastly, more fascistic than the first and that the guardrails that were in place during his first term will be gone during a Godawful second. It is so clear that putting Trump back in the White House “poses a unique threat to our democratic freedoms.” As Obeidallah so strongly writes, “But the only sure way to prevent Trump from subverting the government for a campaign of retribution in which Trump loyalists will be in key positions in the federal government – and ushering in a far-right-wing agenda – is to defeat him this November.” He adds, “We must make our single focus keeping the barbarians outside the gate, not figuring out how to lessen the damage once they are on the inside.”

Stay cool, stay safe, and be well.