Axios

In a summer featuring countless heat domes and record-high temperatures and heat indices, the season appears to have saved the worst for last.

The big picture: A sweltering, stagnant air mass is draped across the Central U.S., resulting in "dangerous," "searing" and "brutal" heat. Meanwhile, southern Europe is also seeing another bout of extreme heat.

A new weather satellite constellation has sent back its first images.

Why it matters: Climate intelligence company Tomorrow.io is aiming to drastically expand the data available over the world's data gaps, including the oceans and many developing countries.

• Tomorrow.io plans to use the satellite constellation, which now numbers two but may total more than 30, to improve its weather forecast models, and help other countries improve their warning systems.

A few stats from prominent analyst Arjun Murti offer a sobering case for why a global peak in oil demand may be very far away.

The big picture: In a compelling analysis, he notes the 1 billion who live in the U.S., Canada, western Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand averaged 13 barrels per capita annually last year.

The operator of Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant announced Thursday it had begun releasing the first batch of treated radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean, 12 years after an earthquake-sparked tsunami caused its contamination.

Why it matters: The decision to release over one million metric tons of treated radioactive water that was deemed safe by the International Atomic Energy Agency drew opposition from Japanese fishing groups and prompted protests in South Korea and China. Beijing banned all Japanese seafood in response to Thursday's action.

Canada's worst wildfire season on record continues, with at least 1,040 blazes still burning. The most dangerous fires, in terms of threatened populations, are in the Northwest Territories and British Columbia.

Threat level: In addition to threatening property and lives, the wildfires have been emitting ever growing amounts of greenhouse gases and other harmful emissions, far surpassing past seasons in the era of satellite monitoring.

Editor's note: Read the latest on this record heat wave here.

About 126 million people were under heat alerts Wednesday, as an "extremely dangerous" heat dome lingers over a major swath of the Midwest, South and Southwest.

The big picture: The heat dome's intensity is setting records dating back to at least 1950.