hot as hades
Houston ranks among the top 5 hottest metros in the nation in scorching new report
A new report takes the temperature of urban heat islands across the U.S., and Houston lands in the hotter-than-you-know-what category.
The report, released July 14 by the nonprofit news organization Climate Central, ranks Houston the fourth worst place among the country's urban heat islands. Houston sits behind New Orleans, holding down the No. 1 spot, with Newark, New Jersey, at No. 2 and New York City at No. 3.
"Even for a Houstonian, it's easy to think first of flooding or hurricanes when it comes to regional climate impacts, but increases in daytime and nighttime temperatures at the rate we've seen since the 1970s can do as much — if not more — damage," the Nature Conservancy of Texas notes in a July 2020 news release.
Climate Central emphasizes that extreme urban heat is a public health threat. Texas, Arizona, and California accounted for 37 percent of the country's heat-related deaths between 2004 and 2018, according to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data released in 2020.
According to the Climate Central report, Houston scored so high because of the city's sizeable share of impermeable surfaces, such as asphalt, concrete, stone, and brick. Impermeable surfaces absorb heat and prevent water from penetrating them.
Climate Central describes urban heat islands as big urban locations that are hotter that outlying areas, especially during the summer. Neighborhoods in a highly developed city can experience peak temperatures that are 15 to 20 degrees above nearby places that have more trees and less pavement, the group says.
The nonprofit created an index to evaluate the intensity of urban heat islands and applied it to 159 cities across the U.S., with Houston claiming the No. 4 spot.
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