It's only early July, and already California is baking under a scorching heat wave, while massive wildfires are burning in the central part of the state.
Other fires are burning in Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and other states. Now the heat wave that has roasted the Midwest, Ohio Valley, and East Coast is shifting west, setting the stage for a blistering weekend from Los Angeles to Sacramento, along with parts of the interior West.
What this means: The National Weather Service has issued its most severe heat warning category — an excessive heat warning — for parts of the Los Angeles basin, while much of the rest of the state is under other heat alerts for Friday and Saturday.
In a statement to Iranian news agency Shana on Thursday, Iran's OPEC minister, Hossein Kazempour Ardebili, addressed President Trump, who has been demanding on Twitter that OPEC lower oil prices, directly, hoping to set the record straight:
"Mr. President ... OPEC has not defined oil prices for the past 30 years. Your tweets have driven the prices up by at least $10/[barrel]. Please stop [tweeting], otherwise it will go even higher!"
Across the Northern Hemisphere, several regions saw some of the hottest temperatures on record this week, according to information compiled by the Washington Post. Apart from the U.S. and Canada, these temperatures were not the result of one single heat wave, but rather several different weather systems.
Our thought bubble, from Axios Science Editor Andrew Freedman: "July is typically Earth’s hottest month, so heat records falling now is not unexpected. But so many rare milestones being set or tied worldwide does point to the influence of a warming world, given that the link between heat waves and climate change is robust, according to scientific studies."
