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In British Columbia, Canada, records were also set. From Greg West: "The headliner is Lytton, BC, ...in the lee of the Coast Range, extremely dry climate, often the hottest location in BC, and Canada. Our old national record was 45.0C set in Saskatchewan in 1937. Lytton's old all time record was 44.4 in 1941. On Sunday they hit 46.6. Then on Monday they hit 47.9. Tuesday they peaked at 49.6 (that can be rounded to 50C?). I'm really completely dumbfounded. Breaking the old all time record by more than 5C, a month from the hottest time of the year, and 3 days in a row."
An unofficial list of all the new all time record maximum temperatures in this event, courtesy of the "coolwx" website run by Dr. Robert Hart of Florida State University:
SOCIETAL IMPACTS
WA, OR, and BC are all usually cool and cloudy. Houses are built with large, south facing windows, to maximize sunlight into houses. Less than half of houses have air conditioning. In short: WA, OR, and BC houses are all built to the past climatology of the area, and the heat they got was very far from that climatology. One approach taken was to board up windows. In contrast to an incoming tropical cyclone, in which the boarding up is to prevent glass from breaking, here, it was to block out the sun and try to keep in the cool air. Dale Durran, University of Washington: "One thing I did to prepare for the heat was buy some 4’x8’ sheets of 1/4” foam core and use them to block the direct sunlight in several windows. Below is a photo of one row of such blocked windows. I’m going to save these for really cold days too — they have to have an R value above most window coverings and work particularly well on the sloped glass."
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