Currently in Portland — July 20, 2023: The sun is back and isn't fooling around

The weather, currently.

I hope you enjoyed the clouds while they lasted, because the sun is back with a vengeance. This Wednesday & Thursday we’re being plunged back into the 90s, and even overnight temps will stay in the 60s, so there’s barely time to cool down and recover—even with windows open and fans running. Be careful out there, and keep filling up water stations for wildlife to stay hydrated!

— Stella Harris

What you can do, currently.

The climate emergency doesn’t take the summer off. In fact — as we’ve been reporting — we’re heading into an El Niño that could challenge historical records and is already supercharging weather and climate impacts around the world.

When people understand the weather they are experiencing is caused by climate change it creates a more compelling call to action to do something about it.

If these emails mean something important to you — and more importantly, if the idea of being part of a community that’s building a weather service for the climate emergency means something important to you — please chip in just $5 a month to continue making this service possible.

Thank you!!

What you need to know, currently.

A strong tornado hit Rocky Mount, North Carolina on Wednesday, damaging a Pfizer medicine plant — a worrying reminder of the overlap between the climate crisis and public health.

A Pfizer spokesperson told the AP that no employees were hurt during the storm, although the estimate is 50,000 pallets of medicine were damaged or destroyed. The damaged factory was “one of the largest sterile injectable facilities in the world,” according to Pfizer, making about 25% of injectable drugs used in U.S. hospitals every year.

There’s growing evidence in recent years that tornado alley has been shifting eastward in recent decades, away from Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas, and towards more populated areas like Tennessee, George, and the Carolinas. The change is significant, too, with the bullseye of tornado frequency shifting about 500 miles eastward from near Oklahoma City to near Nashville.

The reasons for this aren’t well-known, but climate change seems to be playing a role with dryer weather in the West and higher-moisture air in the Gulf of Mexico. The work of Stephen Strader shows that, when taking into account the historical reasons why the South has the highest poverty rates in the country, this is another example of climate change creating worse outcomes for the most vulnerable members of society.

—Eric Holthaus