One of the most eye-catching late heat waves on record enters the center of North America from the Pacific Coast. Many towns have already spent their hottest days and/or their warmest nights early in the season, and some are unheard of at any time before June.
The warm air is mapped from the rapidly heating drylands in northern Mexico and the north of the southwest, which is a powerful high and low push throughout the continent. Hollywood and nearby have conducted previews of the ever-evolving heat waves over the weekend. Burbank, California, set records at 98°F and 101°F on Friday and Saturday. Even just 81°F is enough to record daily on Saturday at Los Angeles International Airport, where sea breezes usually reduce the heat in spring.
Strong heat feeds fast-growing wildfires from Minnesota to Manitoba
The heat waves in early spring, such as the huge “warm waves” in March 2012, are more pleasant than having problems, even if they cause major problems, such as the tree blooms too early, and frost damage cannot be avoided. But this week, with the sun already at levels in late July, burners exploded from northeastern Mexico to southern Canada.
At the U.S.-Canada border, Minnesota International Falls (professored to be “the national refrigerator”) have highs and lows of about 64°F and 38°F in mid-May. On Sunday, May 11, the town reached 96°F. It's a full month than any day ever experienced in 127 years of record keeping.
Record heat brought unusual fire weather, which helped fuel three fires north of Duluth, Minnesota. As of May 15, the fires were 0%, and dozens of structures were destroyed and more than 1,000 houses were forced to evacuate. Smoke in the fire triggered air quality alerts in northeast Minnesota on Wednesday and Thursday, with the aim of achieving an orange Air Quality Index (AQI) (unhealthy for sensitive groups).
Fires lit in northern Minnesota in Canada will produce more smoke. One of the fires was burned to the town of Lak Dupont in Manitoba, killing two people and forcing the evacuation of more than 1,000 people, while the other fire consumed about 250,000 acres in a day and in nearby provincial parks.
At the southern end of the African continent’s fork heat wave, southern Austin, Texas, back-to-back readings were 101°F on Tuesdays, May 13 and 14 and Wednesdays, while San Antonio had a 103°F reading of 102°F on Tuesday. In a reading above 90°F, on a large plain in between.
In the Rio Grande Valley (perhaps the hottest spot in the world on Wednesday), the heat stretches to northwestern Mexico. May is usually the hottest month of the year in Mexico, as the sun rises before the summer monsoon period, but even in May, the current heat is unusually strong. The National Water Commission reported that by the end of April, about half of Mexico was experiencing a drought.
Entering Canada, the hot summer heat is accompanied by the so-called “tropical night” when the low temperature drops below 68°F (20°C). On Monday, the lows of the International Falls were a shocking 70°F. There are only a few nights in the town's history above century history, and even in midsummer, there has never been a low of 70 degrees.
Even before this week, 48 states in succession of the U.S. started running on one of the hottest springs in history. The two-month span of March and April 2025 is the fifth hit in the 131 years of record preservation in the United States. If the second half of May is to bring more massive, prolonged heat waves, it could push the entire three-month spring (March to May) above the record-breaking busy spring of 2012. However, the pattern for next week looks very cool, especially in the eastern half of the country.
Many central U.S. regions also have enough moisture to cut the risk of drought that severe weekly heat waves can help. In fact, it was a particularly wet spring in Ohio and Mississippi Valleys and part of the southern plains. But this month, the drought has been spreading eastward from the Rocky Mountains to the Northern Plains and crashing into extreme levels from southern Nevada and California deserts to southern New Mexico and southern Arizona to southwestern Texas.
Water crisis raises its head again in the southwestern United States
The crucial Lake Powell and Lake Mead reservoirs look increasingly grim, providing only a meager relief from Megadrooked in the short wet period that peaked in 2023. As of late April, reservoirs accounted for only 33% of capacity, while Lake Mead’s water level was lower than any time in modern history, except for 2022-23, i.e., wet period premature probation. This year, warm, dry spring barbecue soil is absorbing most of the runoff of slightly average snow, with much less water than usual.
Read: The wet winter won't solve the troubles of the Colorado River
“The only way everyone wants us to really rebuild storage is if we have a ridiculous, huge year…but it's extremely unlikely,” watershed scientist Jack Schmidt (Utah State University) told the Salt Lake Tribune.
Jeff Masters contributed to this article.
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