‘Zoe’ becomes the world’s first named heat wave
The world’s first named heat wave hit Seville, Spain, this week, pushing temperatures past 110 degrees Fahrenheit and earning the most severe tier in the city’s new heat wave ranking system.
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Zoe is the first named heat wave to hit Seville since it officially launched a new pilot program last month for naming and ranking heat waves, similar to hurricanes (Climatewire, June 22). Only the most severe heat waves get names, designated this year in reverse alphabetical order. After Zoe, comes Yago, Xenia, Wenceslao and Vega.
The worst of the heat is expected to begin tapering off today. But it has posed a significant risk to human health while it’s lasted, according to proMETEO Sevilla, Seville’s new heat wave ranking system.
The program is a collaboration between the city of Seville and the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center (Arsht-Rock), with other partners including the Spanish Office for Climate Change and several Spanish universities and research institutes. It takes a three-tiered approach to categorizing heat waves in Seville, with Category 1 as the lowest ranking and Category 3 as the most severe.
The system has specific criteria for each category, involving not only daytime temperatures, but also nighttime lows, humidity and the heat’s expected effects on human health. Each tier triggers a set of emergency response services, like issuing weather alerts, opening cooling centers and dispatching community health teams to check on vulnerable populations.
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