Currently in the Twin Cities — August 21, 2023: One more multi-day heat wave

The weather, currently.

An excessive heat watch is posted through Thursday for much of southern Minnesota/Twin Cities as the next round of heat builds into the area. Monday will still be relatively pleasant with highs in the mid 80s but you’ll notice dew points increase through the day to become rather muggy late.

Highs Tuesday and Wednesday are back in the 90s. There’s still a question as to how hot it will get, but regardless, dew points are expected into the 70s, making even low 90s feel more like 100 degrees. If forecasts of mid to upper 90s occur we could see heat index values as high as 105 or 110!

— Sven Sundgaard

What you need to know, currently.

Tropical Storm Hilary made landfall in Los Angeles County on Sunday night, causing record rainfall, damaging flash flooding, and countless landslides.

And to top it all off, a M5.1 earthquake struck in Ventura County right in the middle of the storm. Thankfully, the earthquake seemed to cause little or no damage.

Hilary was the first tropical storm to make landfall on the US West Coast since modern recordkeeping began in 1949.

At the time this newsletter was sent on Sunday evening, flooding across Southern California still seemed to be ramping up. Authorities were conducting high-water rescues, and the National Weather Service was begging people to stay home as rainfall rates escalated in the evening hours

Hilary is a large storm, with clouds and associated rainfall stretching all the way from the US-Mexico border to the US-Canada border.

Flooding is likely to be widespread across southern California and southern Nevada on Monday, after which we’ll be able to get a fuller assessment of this historic storm.

—Eric Holthaus

What you can do, currently.

The fires in Maui have struck at the heart of Hawaiian heritage, and if you’d like to support survivors, here are good places to start:

The fires burned through the capital town of the Kingdom of Hawaii, the ancestral and present home to native Hawaiians on their original unceded lands. One of the buildings destroyed was the Na ‘Aikane o Maui cultural center, a gathering place for the Hawaiian community to organize and celebrate.

If you’d like to help the community rebuild and restore the cultural center, a fund has been established that is accepting donations — specify “donation for Na ‘Aikane” on this Venmo link.