Forecasters predict another sweltering summer. Are we ready?

This episode explores the anticipated extreme weather conditions for the summer of 2024, focusing on heatwaves, poor air quality, and a potentially severe Atlantic hurricane season.

1. 2023 experienced some of the hottest temperatures on record in the U.S., impacting air quality and natural ecosystems severely.
2. NOAA predicts 2024 to continue breaking heat records, making it one of the hottest years on record.
3. The Atlantic hurricane season is expected to be intense due to unusually high ocean temperatures and favorable storm conditions.
4. Experts stress the importance of preparedness for natural disasters, which can mitigate the effects and save lives.
5. Climate change is a significant driver of these extreme weather patterns, emphasizing the need for long-term environmental policies.

1. Introduction

Hosts Mary Louise Kelly and Rachel Martin set the stage for a discussion on the sweltering heat and its broad impacts. Mary Louise Kelly: "It's been pretty awful outside."

2. Record Heatwaves

Discussion on the record-breaking heat across the U.S., particularly in cities like Phoenix and Chicago, and their effects on public health and safety. Eric Brickley: "It's sweltering heat, the kind of heat that will burn the bottoms of your feet."

3. Hurricane Forecast

The episode covers the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season forecast, highlighting the expected increase in storm frequency and intensity. Rebecca Hersher: "At least eight of those are expected to be full-blown hurricanes."

4. Fire Season Concerns

Focus on the growing wildfire risks in the West, exacerbated by climate change and resource shortages in firefighting. Colton McCarthy: "There aren't enough wildland firefighters."

5. Policy and Preparedness

Experts and officials discuss strategies and policies needed to prepare for and respond to climate-driven disasters. Eric Hooks: "Think about your specific situation. Do you have medication that requires refrigeration?"

1. Develop a personal emergency plan considering your specific needs, like medication or mobility issues.
2. Stay informed about local weather forecasts and heed evacuation orders during extreme weather events.
3. Support policies that aim to improve funding and resources for disaster response and environmental conservation.
4. Educate yourself and your community on the impacts of climate change and ways to mitigate its effects.
5. Participate in local environmental initiatives that aim to reduce carbon footprints and improve resilience.

The summer of 2023 saw skylines choked by Canadian wildfire smoke, coral cooked in hot tub-warm ocean water and a month straight of 110-degree Fahrenheit high temperatures in Phoenix.

Scientists say 2024 will likely bring another hotter-than-normal summer and, with it, the potential for more climate-driven disasters.

NPR's Rebecca Hersher says forecasters predict an extremely active Atlantic Hurricane season.

And NPR's Kirk Siegler reports on a shortage of federal wildland firefighters ahead of a high-risk wildfire season.

People

Mary Louise Kelly, Rachel Martin, Ravi Calhan, Fenor Montoya Maya, Karen Gleason, Eric Brickley, Rebecca Hersher, Rick Spinrad, Gavin Schmidt, Eric Hooks, Scott Runkle, Kirk Sigler, Colton McCarthy, Grant Beebe, Lucas Mayfield

Companies

NOAA, NASA, FEMA

Content Warnings:

None

Mary Louise Kelly
With one sentence, pulmonologist Ravi Calhan succinctly described the weather that a lot of Americans experienced last summer. Well, it's been pretty awful outside. He was talking specifically about Chicago, where he works at northwestern medicine. The city was blanketed in smoke from canadian wildfires. Someone I know described it as the smell of burning tires.

Rachel Martin
And then normally driving into the city, I can see the beautiful skyline and the, there was no sight of it over the past few days. It's a disconcerting feeling, but it was. Pretty awful outside in a lot of other places, too, in cities like New York and Washington, which broke records for bad air quality. And in the Florida Keys, where the ocean reached hot tub temperatures. Fenor Montoya Maya with the Coral Restoration foundation told NPR the damage was shocking.

Fenor Montoya Maya
Pretty much burned to death. And perhaps nowhere had it worse than Phoenix, which hit 110 degrees on 31 consecutive days. Eric Brickley with the group feed Phoenix described it this way. It's sweltering heat, the kind of heat that will burn the bottoms of your feet from working out on the asphalt for too long. All told, 2023 was the hottest summer on record in many parts of the US, and it was by far the hottest year for the planet as a whole.

Karen Gleason
We are at record levels for eleven consecutive months now. So since last June through April, and we're still counting, of course. That's Karen Gleason with NOAA's national Centers for environmental information. She says we're likely to see more global heat records in the coming months. In fact, it has already been so hot that 2024 is guaranteed to be one of the five hottest years on record.

Mary Louise Kelly
Consider this another sweltering summer is on its way, and with it, the potential for climate fueled disasters. How ready are we?

From NPR, I'm Mary Louise Kelly.

Rachel Martin
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Mary Louise Kelly
It's consider this from NPR. One reason scientists expect the summer to be hot is that ocean temperatures are abnormally high, especially the Atlantic. A hot Atlantic Ocean also usually means more hurricanes. The forecast is out for this year's Atlantic hurricane season, which starts June 1, and NPR's Rebecca Hersher reports it's not good news. The National Hurricane center is predicting between 17 and 25 storms will form in the Atlantic this year.

Rebecca Hersher
At least eight of those are expected to be full blown hurricanes as opposed to weaker tropical storms. This season is looking to be an extraordinary one in a number of ways. Rick Spinrad leads the National oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA. The forecast is the highest NOAA has ever issued for the May outlook. One big reason for the hyperactive forecasts?

Favorable wind conditions, meaning that vertical winds in the Atlantic are less likely to tear apart storms as they form, which happened a lot last summer. Also, water temperatures in the Atlantic Ocean are abnormally high. They've been in record breaking territory for almost the entire last twelve months. Gavin Schmidt is a climate scientist at NASA. He says human caused climate change is the main reason for the off the charts heat in the Atlantic.

And all that extra heat is like fuel for hurricanes, helping them get big and powerful and giving them more moisture, which then falls as heavy rain. That large number of hurricanes spells danger for tens of millions of Americans in the eastern half of the US. Emergency officials stress that even relatively weak storms can cause huge amounts of damage, and many deaths from flooding and hurricanes routinely affect people hundreds of miles from the coasts, Binrad warns. Remember, it only takes one storm to devastate a community, and it's prudent to prepare now because once the storm is headed your way, it all happens so rapidly you won't have the time to plan and prepare. At that point.

That means making a plan now for how you would evacuate or hunker down, depending on the storm. Eric Hooks is the deputy administrator for the Federal Emergency Management Agency. He says the key to a good hurricane plan is to think about your specific situation. Do you have medication that requires refrigeration? Do you have a medical device that requires electricity?

Rachel Martin
Do you have mobility challenges that make evacuations harder? Get prepared now, he says. Atlantic hurricane season runs through the end of November. NPR's Rebecca Hersher.

Mary Louise Kelly
As we mentioned at the top, record global temperatures didn't stop when summer ended last year. They have continued every month since, in part thanks to a strong El Nino climate pattern. El Nino also drives warm, dry winters in parts of the northwestern US and the Rockies, places like Ketchum, Idaho, where Scott Runkle is a high school science teacher. I went down to Littlewood Reservoir in the beginning of January to go ice fishing, and it wasn't frozen, and that's never happened. This weird winter weather is worrying, especially because scientists say climate change could make it more common.

Scott Runkle
You worry about the water, the snowpack, and the farming and the fire season when the soil's drier. So it just has these snowballing effects that lead to compounding problems. On top of that, increased fire risk is another issue. Roughly a quarter of federal wildland firefighter jobs are vacant. NPR's Kirk Sigler reports.

Mary Louise Kelly
That has put fire managers in the west, on edge. Southwest Idaho is on a us government top ten list of wildfire crisis zones due to recent droughts. In overgrown forests close to a population of half a million people, the wilderness ranch subdivision northeast of Boise is accessed by steep, narrow, one way in, one way out dirt roads. There's no cell service. Homes are clustered amidst the pines.

Colton McCarthy
You know, 250 houses just in Wilness Ranch. You got 30 some houses up Daggett Creek over there. So it's with trepidation that the young rural fire chief here, Colton McCarthy, looks ahead to another summer of uncertainty. There aren't enough wildland firefighters. Yeah, it's absolutely a concern across the west.

Karen Gleason
Volunteer fire departments like his are often the first to respond when a wildfire ignites. But if it spreads out of control, the federal army of elite hotshot crews, engine captains, and air tankers are called in to the rescue if they're available. McCarthy figures the US Forest Service will probably do what they've been doing lately, cobble together private contractors, bring in firefighters from outside the country. You know, they're from other areas. They go on big, you know, going fires all over the place.

Colton McCarthy
They certainly have the experience there, but not necessarily the initial tack experience. And the local knowledge as they scramble. To hire federal agencies can at least point to a recent temporary pay bump for firefighters. It was first enacted by President Biden in 2021 and recently extended through September. But the labor crisis has been compounding for at least a decade.

Karen Gleason
Grant Beebe is one of the nation's top fire bosses at the National Interagency Fire center in Boise. Housing is super expensive. Everywhere in the west. I was just reading a story about flight attendants living out of their cars, you know, working out of the Pacific Northwest. That mirrors what a lot of our firefighters experience.

Grant Beebe
They can afford to take the job, but they can't afford to live in the place they're taking the job. In long time firefighting hubs like Boise, a smokejumper manager might make $66,000 where the median home price is now half a million. In Missoula, Montana, starting wages at a new Amazon warehouse are roughly equivalent to rookie firefighter pay. That's a hard recruiting environment. I know more people that are looking for a way out than are looking for a way in.

Karen Gleason
Lucas Mayfield is a former hotshot crew boss who now runs the advocacy group grassroots wildland firefighters. He says in some national forests, the job vacancy rate is far higher than 25%. And particularly troubling is that experienced engine captains, squad leaders, they're leaving. Well, you're losing that talent pool that can make educated and informed on the ground decisions that can minimize the impacts of wildland fire. Another big reason behind the high attrition is the fact that fire seasons are now year round.

Fire managers like Grant Beebe point out that wildfires are getting more intense and dangerous due to climate change. Those of us who are in the profession are in it for a reason. You know, we shouldn't expect people to sacrifice their health, their mental health, their families to do this job. We have to make it a better place to work. So that's what we're working hard on.

There is pressure on Congress to pass a stalled bill that would make the recent pay increases permanent. A lot of firefighters are being asked to do two jobs right now, protect people and property from fire, but also prevent them. One chilly morning on a hilltop near Boise, crews lit a controlled burn. Lily Barnes is deployed here on a hotshot crew from the nearby Wallowa Whitman National Forest in Oregon. It helps eliminate fine fuels so that if there is a large fire that comes through, they aren't as available.

The hope is that would slow down an unplanned wildfire before it burns into a town a mile away. The federal fire Service is leaning heavily on people like Barnes who love this job. Yeah, it's rewarding. We're surrounded by highly motivated, intelligent individuals. It's a good team environment.

It's 14 days on here, three days off, then probably off to an actual wildfire as the west warms. And Pierre's Kirk Sigler in Boise. This episode was produced by Connor Donovan and Tyler Bartlem. It was edited by Courtney Dorning, Rachel Waldholz and Eric Whitney. Our executive producer is Sami Yunigan.

Mary Louise Kelly
And in case you have not heard, consider this is now also a newsletter, just like on the podcast. We'll help you break down a major story of the day. And you'll also get to know our producers and hosts, and we'll share some moments of joy from the ALL Things CONSIDErEd team. You can sign up@npr.org consider this newsletter its consider this from NPR. I'm Mary Louise Kelly.

Rachel Martin
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