Currently in the Twin Cities — August 23, 2023: Record August heat

The weather, currently.

After a very hot and humid Tuesday we have another hot one Wednesday. It will be just a degree or two cooler and slightly less humid but we’ll still the heat index surpass 100 degrees again. Tuesday saw our highest dew point of the whole summer so far, surpassing the 74 we saw in late July.

Tuesday was the hottest August day since 1988, and among the highest heat index days ever measured in the Twin Cities. Lingering humidity all the way from the Pacific via the remnants of Hurricane Hilary helped boost our numbers.

Thursday will still be near 90 but much more tolerable before we continue to cool down. Highs will be in the mid 80s Friday and mostly 70s to low 80s this weekend. We’re unlikely to get much if any rain in the next several days either.

— Sven Sundgaard & Eric Holthaus

What you need to know, currently.

Drought has forced a major slowdown in ship traffic at the Panama Canal, with more than 200 ships waiting up to three weeks to cross.

In an official statement, the Panama Canal Authority said the current drought situation “has no historical precedence.”

Each crossing of the canal uses 51 million gallons of water from nearby lakes, and those lakes are running low. Panama is facing its lowest rainfall since the canal opened in 1914, worsened by climate change and a strengthening El Niño in the Pacific.

It’s not clear how long the situation could last, but some shippers have already been adding surcharges to goods passing through the canal — raising fears that the slowdown could worsen inflation globally.

—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.