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Records toppled across the Midwest on Tuesday as a late summer heat wave struck, leaving hundreds of thousands without power, shuttering schools, and testing state power grids.
Sweltering conditions threatened residents from Missouri to Michigan, with temperatures soaring into the triple digits.
At Chicago’s O’Hare airport, the mercury hit 99 degrees (Fahrenheit), breaking a half-century-old record, according to the National Weather Service. But the “real-feel” heat index temperature was 115F.
Thunderstorms in Illinois forced a ground stop on flights at O’Hare, and strong wind gusts impacted local trains. While temperatures will start to drop later in the week, there is potential for storms.
With the heat came Air Quality Alerts for northeastern Illinois and Indiana, with sensitive groups warned to take extra precautions.
Schools in Chicago, Ohio, and Michigan all planned early dismissals for their students. A spokesperson for Detroit’s public schools told The Associated Press that only 30 percent of its schools have air conditioning.
Nearly 330,000 customers were without power in Michigan after thunderstorms in the southeast of the state. A tornado warning was issued for Bay County, prompting schools to reroute buses, according to MLive.
More than 30,000 customers were in blackout after storms hit Minnesota while nearly 19,000 were impacted in Illinois, according to utility tracker, PowerOutageUS. A heat advisory was also in effect on Michigan on Tuesday, with heat indices reaching around 100F.
On Wednesday, there was still a chance of storms in Michigan, but dry conditions were expected by Thursday.
Further east, record heat was forecast for the Mid-Atlantic on Wednesday, and would last a couple more days for the Ohio and Tennessee Valleys into the interior Southeast. The heat wave was expected to be relatively short-lived, as cooler and damp air moves southward by Thursday.
This summer is on track to break more heat records in the U.S before the season is out. Last month ranked as the warmest July in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s 175-year global record.
With extreme heat events comes heat-related illnesses and deaths. A new JAMA Network study published this week by researchers across the country said heat-related deaths have been increasing, and doubled in recent decades.
Between 1999 and 2023, more than 21,000 people died from heat-related causes, according to the study. This was a 117 percent increase on the previous two decades, the researchers reported.
“The current trajectory that we’re on, in terms of warming and the change in the climate, is starting to actually show up in increased deaths,” lead author Jeffrey Howard, an associate professor of public health at the University of Texas at San Antonio, told USA TODAY. “That’s something that we hadn’t had measured before.”
Approximately 1,220 people in the U.S. are killed by extreme heat every year. Last year saw record heat deaths, with a count of more than 2,300.
With reporting from The Associated Press
