Many of those who died were older and lived alone. The temperature at the time soared to an all-time high of 116 F (46.7 C) in Portland and smashed heat records in cities and towns across the region. Residents and officials in the Northwest have been trying to adjust to the likely reality of longer, hotter heat waves following last summer’s deadly “heat dome” weather phenomenon that prompted record temperatures and deaths.Ībout 800 people died in Oregon, Washington and British Columbia during a 2021 heat wave that hit in late June and early July. “He was in his tent for like a week and the smell, that’s how they figured out that he was dead,” Taylor said. He’s afraid the same thing might happen this summer. His friend Mel Taylor, who was homeless last year but now has transitional housing, said during last summer’s record-breaking heat wave a man in a tent near his died from heat exhaustion and no one realized it. He said the heat in his tent was almost unbearable. Nonluecha was less than a minute’s walk from a cooling shelter set up by local authorities but wasn’t aware it was open. William Nonluecha, who lives in a tent in Portland, sought out shade with some friends as the temperature soared on Wednesday afternoon. The overnight shelters will remain open at least through Friday morning. But anticipating more demand, officials have decided to expand capacity at the four sites to accommodate nearly 300 people. Multnomah County said its four emergency overnight cooling shelters were at half capacity on Tuesday with 130 people spending the night.

I still pay my employees when we’re closed like this because they have to pay the bills too, but for a small business it’s not good,” he said Tuesday. Last week, even with slightly cooler temperatures in the mid-90s, Loverde got heat stroke from working in his cart for hours, he said. Loverde said he closes down if it reaches above 95 F (35 C) because his refrigerators overheat and shut down. The duration of the heat wave puts Oregon’s biggest city on course to tie its longest streak of six consecutive days of 95 F (35 C) or higher.Ĭlimate change is fueling longer heat waves in the Pacific Northwest, a region where weeklong heat spells were historically rare, according to climate experts. Seattle on Tuesday also reported a new record daily high of 94 F (34.4 C). Portland already hit 102 F (38.9 C) on Tuesday, a new record daily high, prompting the National Weather Service to extend the excessive heat warning for the city from Thursday through Saturday evening. His office is now forecasting up to 101 degrees Fahrenheit (38.3 Celsius) for Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

“We warmed up the forecast for the latter part of this week,” said David Bishop, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Portland, Oregon. (AP) - The scorching heat spell in the Pacific Northwest is now expected to last longer than forecasters had initially predicted, setting parts of the normally temperate region on course to break heat wave duration records.

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