The U.S. Pacific Northwest sweltered Friday and braced for even hotter weather through the weekend as a historic heat wave hit Washington and Oregon, with temperatures in many areas expected to top out up to 30 degrees above normal.
The extreme and dangerous heat was expected to break all-time records in cities and towns from eastern Washington state to Portland to southern Oregon as concerns mounted about wildfire risk in a region that is already experiencing a crippling and extended drought.
The extremely hot weather comes a week after a heat wave in the intermountain West broke records from Montana to Arizona. According to 2019 figures from the U.S. Census Bureau, Seattle has the lowest rate of air-conditioned homes of any major American city. Only 44% of the homes in the metro area have air conditioning. In the Portland metro area, that figure was 79%.
"Unfortunately, we're starting to see this year after year," said O'Sell, who used a dolly to transport her new unit to her nearby apartment. "We're going to be like California, and that's going to be desert down there. It's only going to get hotter." Sara Stathos was selling ice cream from inside an air-conditioned food truck in Portland and said the business would shut down over the weekend because the ice cream "basically melts as we hand it to customers" in such hot weather.
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