BUFFALO, N.Y. — As thousands of Western New Yorkers were celebrating America’s birthday, they were also — knowingly or not — experiencing the hottest day in history.
According to scientists at the University of Maine, the average global temperature reached 62.6 degrees Fahrenheit on Tuesday — the hottest day since temperature tracking began in the ice age.
“To put that in perspective, 125,000 years ago, every human being lived in Africa, and we were just about ready to start making our way into Europe to start to duke it out with the Neanderthals,” Dr. Andrew Pershing with the nonprofit Climate Central said.
The sweltering summer heat is only expected to press on in Western New York with heat advisories going into place Thursday in Niagara, Orleans and Genesee counties. Heat index numbers are expected to reach the mid-90s by the late afternoon.
Those temperatures have caused cities such as Buffalo to open 10 cooling shelters throughout the city.
“We expect that places, year after year, are going to trend warmer,” Pershing said. “It doesn't mean that every year, every day is going to be warmer. But overall we expect to encounter more and more conditions that are going to be uncomfortable.”
A hot day, according to Climate Central, is defined as any day above 85 degrees.
That benchmark is low for our neighbors down south, but a rarity in Western New York that’s now here to stay with the average number of hot days rising by eight in the past in decades from 15 in 1970 to 23 in 2022.
“They’re temperatures that are consistent with climate change,” Pershing said. “They're one-and-a-half to two times more likely because of climate change. So they are conditions that you're going to see more and more of throughout the years as global warming continues.”
Erie County is advising residents to do the typical techniques like drinking lots of water and staying inside, but also advising some more inventive solutions like limiting the use of the stove or oven and eating hydrating foods such as watermelon and cucumber.