Heat domes, extreme weather dominate 2023 headlines in U.S. but not the Northeast. Why?

Anthony Orama and his son, Kaiden, took advantage of a stretch of glorious weather that hovered in the low 80s to hit the basketball court at Crompton Park this summer in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Ten-year-old Kaiden showed off his favorite move of faking left and then dribbling right for a layup as his proud father looked on.

But when the topic shifted to the weather, Anthony Orama’s mood turned serious when he spoke of his firm belief in climate change. The world is getting hotter, he said, and Kaiden believes that, too, saying his family only has one air conditioning unit in their Worcester home to stay cool.

So far this summer, that one unit may have done the job as Worcester and New England experienced mild temperatures with frequent rainstorms to keep the air relatively cool. But is that a true harbinger of what is to come for us in a world being rapidly turned upside down by climate crisis?

Why is New England mild, while much of U.S. baked this summer?

That is a question to consider as headlines from other parts of the U.S. highlight record-breaking temperatures and disturbing weather patterns, the latest being the wildfire devastation in Maui.

Heat domes became part of the vernacular, trapping hot air for prolonged periods above Texas and the West, creating miserable conditions for millions in the U.S. It was especially bad in Phoenix, where the temperature was at least 110 degrees for 31 straight days — the entire month of July — shattering previous records.

There were also air-quality alerts from Canadian wildfires that affected New England, sending vast plumes of heavy smoke into the U.S., putting those suffering with asthma and other respiratory problems on edge.

Northeast mostly dodged a heat-seeking bullet

Worcester and the rest of Central Massachusetts dodged these weather bullets, except for a few days of air-quality alerts from the Canadian wildfires, some stretches of high humidity, and frequent rain showers — some severe — that flooded neighborhoods.

Cape Cod and the Islands, typically several degrees cooler than much of the region but still warmer than was typical decades ago, was also spared the soaring temperatures, although it did contend with high humidity as warm winds blew up over warm water from the southwest. It, too, had a few high ozone alert days related to heat, and haziness owing to the wildfires.

So back to the original question: Why did the extreme heat bypass us? The answer is the heat dome and jet stream, said Mary Stampone, associate professor of geography at the University of New Hampshire, who is also the Granite State’s official climatologist.

But before Stampone delved deeper, she said it's important to be aware that a core summer month — July — was actually hotter than normal in New England.

• In Worcester, that was the case as the average temperature was 73.7 degrees, compared to the so-called "climate normal" average in July of 70.9 degrees.

• In Providence, while June was cooler than normal and August was also shaping up to be, July was slightly warmer, with an average temperature of 75.2 degrees compared to the climate normal of 74.4 degrees.

• On Cape Cod, the same held true. The average temperature for July was 76.9, while the norm is closer to 71.4. In August, the average temperature was 73.7, while the norm is 70.7.

That higher-than-average heat is connected to climate crisis, said Stampone, because added heat and energy in the atmosphere translates to more rain.

• Worcester recorded total rainfall of 12.3 inches in July, far beyond the normal average rainfall in July in Worcester of 3.93 inches. The city's all-time record in July is 13.85 inches was set in 2021.

• Providence too saw more rain than normal, recording 8.4 inches in July compared to a normal average of 2.9 inches.

• Cape Cod had an average 2.7 inches in July compared to the norm of about 1.63.

As for the heat dome, Stampone said it pushed the jet stream — those narrow bands of strong winds in the upper atmosphere — in a northerly direction. That created a bell curve over the western half of the U.S. that locked that region under suffocating heat.

Meanwhile, the dip in the bell curve represented the jet stream that dropped over the Great Lakes and New England, sending cooler air our way from the Canadian interior. The downside to the comfortable air, said Stampone, was the cool side of the jet stream funneled many storms to New England.

“That’s why we flooded,” Stampone said.

We asked her about the likelihood of a heat dome hitting New England and the Northeast in a future summer. Here's what we learned:

IS NEW ENGLAND SUSCEPTIBLE TO A 'HEAT DOME' IN FUTURE SUMMERS? Not highly at risk — but less likely things have been happening due to accelerating climate crisis. Heat domes do require expansive spaces — think of Big Sky country out west. Those areas are consistently dry. Northeast weather patterns are more variable. Heat domes require a build up of high pressure, very hot and dry. The Northeast can have high pressure but in the past not as hot or dry for extended periods of time.

IF IT HAPPENS, THE NORTHEAST IS NOT PREPARED: If rising summer heat in the region year after year leads to drier conditions and then a rare heat dome, the region doesn’t have the infrastructure to deal with the crisis. Namely, air-conditioning access and civic protections for vulnerable people. People's bodies in the Northeast have a lower threshold for extreme heat due to lack of past experience, in general. Older buildings mean it currently is more expensive to add central air. That contributes to why region is not prepared, plus a lack of planning and awareness around sufficient cooling centers and emergency heat plans.

DAMAGING RAINFALL IS A BIGGER RISK IN COMING SUMMERS: The higher than average heat that New England experienced this summer is connected to the climate crisis. And the added heat and energy in the atmosphere translates to more rain, raising risks of deadly and damaging flooding.

Climate Central's Andrew Pershing agreed.

He said the maps he has looked at are like lava lamps with bubbles, the conditions that lead to heat domes are rising in the southern area of the United States. The dynamics are fluid, and the heat in the South plays off the comparatively cooler temperatures we've seen in summer of 2023 in the Northeast.

The dangerous El Niño effect, unlocking warmth in the Pacific Ocean that will raise temperatures around the globe, takes about six months to kick in. Based on NOAA maps, the warming will land in a few more months — making the Northeast winter more mild.

The humidity made even days in the 80s miserable

Mitch "Money Mitch Woo" Reardon of Worcester was skateboarding at Crompton Park in July. He feels like this summer has been hotter than in the past — the hottest summer he can remember. The main thing has been the humidity, he said.

It’s been so brutal that he can only go to the skate park for an hour and then he has to go home. Reardon worries that if Massachusetts saw a heat dome like the deadly Pacific Northwest one in 2021, that a lot of people would die in Worcester — many older people at home who get too hot and dehydrated on top of underlying medical issues.

Reardon lives in an old triple decker, and said that in a heat dome, he also would struggle. It costs too much money to run his AC unit. Urban islands like where he lives would suffer greatly, he believes.

Still not convinced? Climate change isn't only about heat

An important aspect about the earth's changing environment is that you don't have to be sweltering under a heat dome to be affected by the human-driven climate change that scientists are warning about with increasing urgency. While heat is "a very immediate effect of climate change, Caroline Ummenhofer, an oceanographer and climatologist with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, pointed out there are other concerning effects as well.

Among them are changes in the water cycle, weather patterns and extreme weather events.

"Extreme events like drought and flood are likely to become more frequent," she said, not to mention more intense.

The earth does go through natural cycles of warming and cooling, she acknowledged, but human activity has long been accelerating and exacerbating these cycles by overloading the atmosphere with greenhouse gases. Consequently, the natural balance is tipping dangerously.

"There are more and more lines of evidence that are kind of telling us the same story," Ummenhofer said.

While there is a lot of variability in the system, she noted, "in a steady climate you would expect a balance."

But that's not happening. And she and other scientists are worried, too, about heat waves in the oceans, causing changes to currents that impact weather and shifting of species that have consequences for fisheries, not to mention providing fuel for hurricanes to become bigger, more frequent and more destructive, and the potential to travel "a lot further north than they normally would."

"What we are seeing is almost one year after another being a record-breaking event," Ummenhofer said. "We're not seeing that balance anymore."

Andrew Gottlieb, executive director of the Association to Preserve Cape Cod, a leading nonprofit environmental advocacy organization in the region, said he doesn't understand why some people are still having conversations about whether human-driven climate change is real or not.

True, he said, that New England may not be frying eggs on its sidewalks, but "it's irrefutable that we are on track to have the warmest year recorded in human history this year."

"Some areas are sweltering hot, some are experiencing extreme fire conditions or flooding," he said. "The hallmark of climate change is bigger extremes."

For example, last year Cape Cod trudged through a drought that turned local farmers' fields to powdery dust, while this year there have been extreme rain events — just a couple of weeks ago, it rained 4 inches on the Cape Cod town of Mashpee in an hour, and another 3 inches the following week.

And then there are the recent tornado warnings, and one that touched down in Barnstable.

Plus, temperatures at night are not as cool as they used to be, he pointed out. It's not noticed as much, he said, "because a lot of people have air conditioning" they run at night and aren't paying as much attention to the temperature.

Yes, Cape Cod is "still cooler than it is in lots of places in Massachusetts," Gottliebe said, "but it's not as great a relief as one would have grown up with."

So how long will mild temperatures last?

We still have a few weeks left in the summer, so there's still time for high heat. But will we get it?

Stampone studied climate models developed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that told her New England would have cool and wet weather in early August. That prediction appears to have played out.

The models also told Stampone that the jet stream will eventually break, and when that happens, we should have warmer weather through October.

If that‘s true, Worcester's Orama family may need to buy a second AC unit to stay cool, an idea that Kaiden is onboard with. "We only have one AC unit upstairs (at home)," said Kaiden while taking a break from practicing layups. "I don't always like going upstairs."

The Telegram & Gazette, Providence Journal and Cape Cod Times are investigating the effects of a rapidly heating planet on people who live in our city. Follow along with "City on Fire" as we report the struggle with summer temperatures, even in New England. This is part of the USA TODAY project Perilous Course.

Contact Henry Schwan at henry.schwan@telegram.com. Follow him on Twitter: @henrytelegram. Heather McCarron and Alex Kuffner also contributed to this report. Contact McCarron at @hmccarron@capecodonline.com or follow her on Twitter@HMcCarron_CCT.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Heat domes are not leaving. But New England has been spared for now.