Extreme Heat Wave (48.3 °C) Spreads across US with 55m People under Heat Alerts

The extreme heat wave that has baked much of southern United States continues to spread to other regions of the country this week, with over 55 million people now under heat alerts.

The heat wave has scorched Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, among other southern parts over the past week, setting or challenging all-time records.

The life-threatening “oppressive” heat dome was producing “dangerous heat and humidity in Texas and spread into the lower Mississippi River Valley”, according to the US National Weather Service (NWS), reported Xinhua.

San Angelo in West Texas registered 114 degrees Fahrenheit (45.5 °C) twice in June, the highest ever recorded there. The border town of Del Rio hit 115  degrees Fahrenheit(46.1°C) for the first time.

A reading of 119 degrees Fahrenheit (48.3 °C) on Friday in the Big Bend area of southwest Texas came within one degree of tying the state's previous all-time high of 120 recorded in 1994, according to meteorologists for the NWS in Midland.

The heat wave is continuing to bake Texas, and will expand in the coming days across much of the southern Plains, the Deep South, the Lower Mississippi Valley and the Gulf Coast, according to the NWS.