US heat forecast: See where Americans face the greatest risk from extreme heat this week

By Matt Stiles, Byron Manley, Tyler Ory, CNN

(CNN) — Extreme heat is a growing threat across the US each summer, but the risk isn’t the same everywhere. Exceptionally high temperatures — and hot nights — affect public health, causing spikes in emergency room visits and hundreds of heat-related deaths each summer.

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As temperatures rise, CNN is tracking extreme heat conditions and the potential risk for Americans each day.

To help prepare Americans for the dangerous temperatures, the National Weather Service and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a national forecast predicting heat-related risks.

It considers the severity and unusualness of forecast heat and its potential duration, while also factoring the likely impact on residents in specific locations based on CDC data for past effects, such as deaths.

Tens of millions of people across the West and Plains are under the two highest levels of heat risk Saturday and Sunday. Heat at this level is serious enough to affect anyone without access to cooling and hydration.

The National Weather Service also produces multi-day apparent temperature forecasts, which take into account other factors such as wind and humidity to help explain what it “feels like” outside.

This map, updated each morning, shows that forecast across the contiguous US for the next three days:

CNN also uses this national forecast map to derive “feels like” temperature predictions in more than 800 US cities with a population greater than 50,000 residents. Search it here:

This weekend alone roughly 50 million people across more than a dozen states will be under heat alerts.

As the planet warms, heat waves are now more common, intense and long-lasting, and temperatures are warming even faster overnight — not cooling down enough to offer relief.

As those temperatures rise, heat records will also fall.

The weather service each day releases a forecast for potential record-breaking temperatures, by location, across the country. Here are places where high temperature records could be broken over the next three days, with more than a dozen record highs forecast to fall this weekend.

Forecasters from the National Weather Service also try to predict average temperatures across regions of the country over the coming weeks. This map shows the chance that areas of the continental United States will be above, below or near normal average temperatures.

Darker shades represent areas where the average temperature has an increased chance of being warmer or cooler than usual. Gray areas are expected to be near normal.

Predictions often hold true, breaking daily high temperature records. This map highlights locations across the continental United States where temperatures exceeded calendar day records, according to the Southeastern Regional Climate Center.

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