Swaths of California sweltered Tuesday and things were only expected to get worse during the Fourth of July holiday week for parts of the United States with nearly 90 million people under heat alerts.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Swaths of California sweltered Tuesday and things were only expected to get worse during the Fourth of July holiday week for parts of the United States, with nearly 90 million people under heat alerts.
The torrid conditions were being caused by a ridge of high pressure just off the West Coast and a separate ridge that spawned heat warnings and advisories from Kansas and Missouri to the Gulf Coast states, according to the National Weather Service.
California’s capital, Sacramento, was under an excessive heat warning expected to last until Sunday night, with temperatures forecasted to reach between 105 degrees and 115 degrees (40.5 and 46 Celsius).
John Mendoza, 35, called it a “firehose of heat” as he walked around the Capitol on Tuesday with an iced coffee in his hand. By 9 a.m. he had already been in a pool once — and planned to go back later in the day.