A prolonged heat wave continued to escalate in the United States on Thursday, threatening the health of more than 80 million residents. Dangerous conditions are expected today in addition to the Southern region of the US, where it has been hitting the US for several weeks, in the central states or in Washington DC In the current hot epicenter of Phoenix report authorities seven more victims and dozens of suspicious deaths.

The range of extreme temperature warnings has once again expanded, with varying warning levels covering nearly the entire eastern part of the country, as well as the southwestern region of the United States. Based on sheet The New York Times In a region with a population of 84 million, temperatures could exceed 39 degrees Celsius, which meteorologists classify as dangerously hot.

Some southern states such as Arizona, Texas or Florida have been experiencing such days for about a month due to persistent high pressure zones trapping warm air. But this week, the danger has expanded to much of the Midwest from Kansas to Indiana, as well as the East Coast. The weather forecast in Washington promised temperatures of up to 42 degrees and it lived up to that diary The Washington Post Air temperatures in the capital could rise to 100 degrees Fahrenheit, or less than 38 degrees Celsius, for the first time since 2016.

Data on deaths related to high temperatures every week update Maricopa County in the state of Arizona, which is the area most closely watched regarding heat at the moment. Local health officials raised the death toll from 18 to 25 this week and said they were investigating another 249 deaths. The number is still lower than in the same period last year, when the number of heat-related deaths eventually rose to 425, almost four times the total recorded a decade earlier.