People Are Already Dropping Dead as Extreme Heat Scorches the US

In large swaths of these United States, people are already dying from this summer's brutal heat wave.

According to St. Louis' KMOV, a 55-year-old woman was found dead in her apartment this week after her electricity had been shut off during this so-called "heat dome" phenomenon — which involves heat being trapped by atmospheric conditions, as if by a lid or a cap.

Reporting from KSDK, another area broadcaster, indicated that the woman had been stranded in her apartment without air conditioning or water as temperatures rose into the 90s for as many as three days before authorities found her body.

In Maryland, where the heat index is slated to reach up to 115 degrees, health officials marked the first heat-related death of the summer — which began, we must remind you, just a few days ago on June 21. Details about that death are few and far between, except that the person lived in Montgomery County, which borders the District of Columbia, and that they were believed to be a minor.

The situation is almost bound to become vastly worse; in all likelihood, many more people have already succumbed to the heat and either haven't yet been found, or their deaths haven't yet been made public.

So bad is the heat in Maryland that governor Wes Moore issued an official "state of preparedness" warning as officials caution residents to take the dangerous heat seriously.

"Many Marylanders are at risk for heat-related illness during extreme heat like we are experiencing this week," the state's health secretary, Meena Seshamani, said in a statement to Maryland Matters.

While temperatures on the Eastern Seaboard and the Midwest surge into triple digits, temperatures are unseasonably low in parts of the country where scorching weather is expected.

As The Weather Channel reports, El Paso, Texas has a forecasted high of only 84 degrees today — 12 degrees below average for the border town that calls Juarez, Mexico its sister.

It's easy enough for those of us unlucky enough to be trapped inside this massive heat dome to envy El Pasans for their comparably breezy temps. But ultimately, they're the flip-side of the same climate change coin that's brought 100-degree weather to Boston and New York City — the latter of which is in the midst an historically tense mayoral primary that may see suppressed voter turnout our even electrical blackouts thanks to the extreme heat.

More on this summer's heat wave: Extreme Heat Is Killing Unfathomable Numbers of People Worldwide

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