Currently — May 8th, 2023

The weather, currently.

In Alberta, Canada, lingering drought and a warmer-than-normal Spring have combined to fan massive early-season wildfires across the province. On Saturday, provincial premier Danielle Smith declared a state of emergency. Nearly 25,000 people have been forced to evacuate their homes.

Conditions are ripe for the fires, which have already burned more area than in all of 2022, to continue to spread.

—Eric Holthaus

What you need to know, currently.

Vietnam recorded its highest temperature of 111.4 degrees F (44.1 degrees C).

The record was set in the northern province of Thanh Hoa, while other neighboring countries also experienced severe heat. For example, Thailand reported almost 112.3 degrees F (44.6 degrees C) in its western Mak province, and an eastern town in Myanmar recorded 110.9°F (43.8 degrees C), the highest recorded temperature in the past decade.

"I believe this record will be repeated many times," told climate change expert Nguyen Ngoc Huy to AFP. "It confirms that extreme climate models are being proven to be true."

Similarly, Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital recorded its highest temperature since the 1960s. And in April, Spain recorded its hottest recorded temperature of 101.9 degrees F (38.8 degrees C) for that month at Codoba airport.

The world has already warmed by about 1.1 degrees C since the start of the industrial era, and though governments previously concluded to work to avoid global temperature rises breaching 1.5 degrees C, experts warn it is likely to do so in the 2030s.

Unless governments make significant cuts to emissions, the world will continue warming, resulting in even more deadly heat.

—Aarohi Sheth

What you can do, currently.

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• Text directly with Eric, our founder, who will personally answer your weather questions and give you a customized forecast on demand.

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