The southern part of the jet stream over North America has broken apart leading to an extreme heat dome in Texas, Florida and Mexico.
Earth’s jet streams — currents of air that wrap around the planet — are worrying some climate scientists, who this week described the pattern as “chaotic,” “insane” and looking like a van Gogh painting.
They say the stream appears more broken and wavy than usual, and that the irregular pattern is tied to human-caused climate change.
The jet stream over North America has broken apart, and meteorologists link this to an extreme heat dome — when hot air is trapped under a swath of high pressure — over Mexico and some parts of the U.S. including Texas and Florida.
This blistering weather comes two years after a similar heat dome in B.C., which caused the deaths of 619 people. The June 2021 heat wave led to a record 49.6 C in Lytton, one day before the village burned down from wildfire.
Earth’s jet streams described as chaotic, like a Van Gogh painting | Vancouver Sun