heat dome
Sky traps warmth
A heat dome is a mass of high-pressure air that settles over a region and traps hot air beneath it, causing prolonged extreme temperatures.
The high pressure acts like a lid, preventing the hot air from rising and dissipating.
Heat domes can persist for days or weeks, creating dangerous conditions: The Pacific Northwest heat dome of 2021 killed hundreds.
The term has become common in climate reporting as such events grow more frequent and intense.
- heatwaveProlonged abnormally high temperatures
- triple digitsNumbers from 100-999
- scorchingExtremely hot, burning
- swelteringExtremely hot, uncomfortably so
- dog daysHottest summer weeks
high pressure · stagnant · dead air · oppressive · drought · wildfire · suffocating · stay indoors · blazing · parched · humidity · thermometer · asphalt · shimmer · relentless · broiling · sunstroke · atmospheric
- weather phenomenatornado, wind, hurricane, gust, blizzard
- heatthermal energy, heatwave, radiation, convection, insulators
- severe weatherblizzard, hurricane, cyclone, hailstorm, ice storm
- tropical weatherhurricane, tropical storm, tropical cyclone, hurricanes, tropical depression
- climate impactsglobal warming, rising temperatures, rising temps, extreme weather, sea level rise
- Texas weathertornado, hail, thunderstorm, hurricane, flash flood
heat domepolar vortex
Persistent circulating cold air mass
cold snap · cold wave · cold front · deep freeze · arctic blast
heat domecold front
Incoming cooler air mass
low-pressure system · trough · cyclone · storm system · atmospheric river
heat, dome, heats, heated, heating, heater, heaters, overheat, overheated