Record-smashing heat spreads: 'Basically the entire US is going to be
hot'
[March 25, 2026]
By SETH BORENSTEIN
After smashing March heat records in 14 states and the U.S. as a whole,
the gigantic heat dome that's baked the Southwest is creeping eastward
and may end up being one of the most expansive heat waves in American
history, meteorologists and weather historians said.
And it's not going away for awhile, maybe not till the middle of the
next week as April starts, said meteorologist Gregg Gallina of the
National Weather Service's Weather Prediction Center.
“Basically the entire U.S. is going to be hot,” Gallina said Monday.
“The area of record temperatures is extremely large. That's the thing
that's really bizarre.”
This heat dome — in which high pressure is acting like a pot lid
trapping hot air over a region — will leave Flagstaff, Arizona, with 11
or 12 straight days of temperatures higher than the city's previous
March record, said meteorologist Jeff Masters of Yale Climate
Connections.
Gallina said the dome's eastward movement will mean temperatures in the
90s Fahrenheit (mid-30s Celsius) by Wednesday over the southern and
central Plains. From one-quarter to one-third of the 48 continental
states will be flirting with records for March, Gallina said.
The physical area of this heat wave likely dwarfs two other historic
heat waves — one in 2012 in the Upper Midwest and Northeast and another
in 2021 in the Pacific Northwest — according to weather historian Chris
Burt, author of the book “Extreme Weather.” It may not be as large as
the Dust Bowl heat waves of 1936, but that was a series of heat waves
over two months during summer, not a single big event like now, Burt
said.
Both the Dust Bowl and the 2021 heat wave were more intense, with higher
temperatures that hurt people more because they fell in June and July,
Gallina said.
Another saving grace for people in this heat wave is that it's not as
humid as it would be if the temperatures rose in the summer, Gallina
said.
On Friday, four places in Arizona and California hit 112 degrees (44.4
degrees Celsius), according to the Weather Service. Not only did that
smash the record for the hottest March day in the continental United
States by 4 degrees (2 degrees Celsius), but it was only 1 degree shy of
the hottest day recorded in the Lower 48 in April.
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Rubin Pantaleon stays in the shade while waiting for work washing
car windshields as a record-breaking winter heat wave continues
across the Southwest, Thursday, March 19, 2026, in Thermal, Calif.
(AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
Climatologist and weather historian Maximiliano Herrera, who tracks
global weather records, compiled a list of 14 states that have
notched their hottest March day on record since this heat dome
started: California, Arizona, Nevada, Kansas, New Mexico, Nebraska,
Utah, South Dakota, Missouri, Iowa, Colorado, Wyoming, Minnesota and
Idaho.
“In Mexico, even May records were trashed with March records broken
by as much as 14 (degrees Fahrenheit), far more than July 1936,
March 1907 or June 2021,” Herrera wrote in an email.
The National Center for Environmental Information registered at
least 479 weather stations breaking records for March from Wednesday
through Saturday, based on its network of stations. Herrera, who
analyzed a broader set of data, said the true number is likely
higher. Another 1,472 daily records — which are easier to break —
were shattered at the same time, the center said.
What's happening is the jet stream — which moves weather systems
from west to east — is pretty much stuck as far westward as the
storms dousing Hawaii, where people are seeing torrential rains and
flooding, Masters and Gallina said.
On Friday, a group of international climate scientists called World
Weather Attribution determined that the record heat was "virtually
impossible'' and 800 times more likely because of climate change
from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas. The result of those
activities added at least 4.7 degrees (2.6 degrees Celsius) to the
heat, said report co-author Clair Barnes, an Imperial College of
London scientist with the group.
The heat dome will move on by late next week, Masters said: “We just
have to give it time.”
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