The Deadliest Extreme Weather Event Is Not What You Think It Is

Meanwhile, successful confederate Nevada’s Clark County, nan coroner’s agency announced past week that 29 heat-related deaths person been reported truthful acold this twelvemonth — up from nan aforesaid clip successful 2024. Clark County includes nan metropolis of Las Vegas, which is 1 of nan fastest-warming cities successful nan country, according to a study published earlier this year by nan nonprofit statement Climate Central.

The region recorded its first heat-related decease for 2025 on May 9, weeks earlier its first confirmed heat-related fatality successful precocious May 2024. Last twelvemonth was peculiarly deadly for confederate Nevada, pinch 527 heat-related fatalities, according to nan Clark County Coroner and Medical Examiner’s office.

A personification cools disconnected by misters on nan Las Vegas Strip arsenic temperatures attack 110 degrees connected July 14, 2025.Chase Stevens / Las Vegas Review-Journal/TNS/Getty Images

The summertime of 2024 was confederate Nevada’s hottest successful recorded history, according to nan National Weather Service. Las Vegas recorded a caller grounds precocious somesthesia of 120 degrees Fahrenheit past July, and endured much than 100 days of triple digit temperatures.

Nearby, successful Arizona’s Maricopa County, 15 heat-related deaths person been recorded as of July 19. That early fig trails nan 23 confirmed deaths recorded by July 19, 2024, though nationalist wellness records bespeak that 299 deaths this twelvemonth are still nether investigation.

In May, nan Maricopa County Department of Public Health said that past year, astatine slightest 1 heat-related decease occurred each time successful Maricopa County from June 18 to July 31.

In 2024, which was nan hottest twelvemonth connected grounds for nan county, authorities confirmed 602 heat-related fatalities, down from a record-shattering 645 heat-related deaths successful 2023. That marked Maricopa's first diminution successful power deaths successful a decade.

Local officials launched respective caller initiatives aimed astatine keeping group cool and safe complete nan summer, including planting trees to summation shadiness successful nationalist spaces and resurfacing pavements pinch much reflective surfaces successful definite areas to combat municipality heat.

“For a batch of folks, power is an inconvenience, but for others, it’s very overmuch a matter of life and death,” said Ariel Choinard, a intelligence astatine nan Desert Research Institute successful Las Vegas and caput of nan Nevada Heat Lab.

Certain group are much astatine consequence than others, specified arsenic elder citizens, individuals pinch chronic wellness conditions aliases young children who whitethorn not beryllium capable to articulate really they are feeling, she said.

Exposure to utmost power besides tends to disproportionately impact lower-income communities, according to Choinard. While everyone successful a metropolis for illustration Las Vegas is exposed to summertime precocious temperatures, really group acquisition that power depends connected if they person unchangeable housing, whether they are limited connected nationalist transportation, aliases if they person entree to and tin spend aerial conditioning.

A study published successful August 2024 successful nan journal JAMA recovered that from 1999 to 2023, location were 21,518 heat-related deaths successful nan United States. The investigation tracked these deaths each twelvemonth and recovered that heat-related mortality rates person accrued complete nan past 2 decades, and peculiarly successful nan past 7 years.