State health officials this week warned New Mexicans to take precautions during a record-breaking heat wave, with temperatures projected to spike into the 90s for much of the state over the weekend.
The New Mexico Department of Health issued an advisory due to the “dangerously early” high temperatures affecting much of the Western U.S. occurring before people’s bodies acclimate to hotter weather and prepare home cooling systems.
State health officials recommend residents avoid exercise or strenuous labor during the heat of the day, and drink additional water, take breaks and seek shade.
“These temperatures wouldn’t be super uncommon in the summertime, but because they are hitting so early it can catch people unawares,” Chelsea Eastman Langer, the chief of NMDOH’s Environmental Health Epidemiology Bureau, told Source NM.
Signs of heat illness can start with warm, reddened skin, suddenly progressing to cold clammy skin, Eastman Langer said. Signs to seek medical attention include muscle spasms and pain from heat cramps. Heat illness can become serious, very quickly, she said.
“It can go from heat cramps to symptoms like a rapid pulse, nausea, dizziness, headache, confusion and that can progress to coma and death, if it isn’t treated,” she said.
While heat illness can affect anyone, outdoor workers and people experiencing homelessness face the most risk, she said, along with children and the elderly.
The state is still in the midst of proposing a heat illness and injury rule for New Mexico workers, with the state’s environment department releasing a new draft in March, nearly a year after starting the process. The rule would mandate breaks, cooling and access, and received pushback from industry groups representing livestock, landscapers, oil and gas, restaurants, county governments and utilities. A hearing on the rule is currently scheduled for Aug. 3-7, according to hearing documents.
In preparation for rising temperatures in Las Cruces, Nicole Martinez, the executive director for Mesilla Valley Community of Hope, which is the city’s largest homelessness outreach program, told Source NM the organization’s outreach teams are distributing cases of frozen water bottles to people living on the streets and urging people to cool off at the Community of Hope campus downtown, which has misters and shaded outdoor spaces. Afternoon temperatures are expected to be 90 degrees Thursday, with weekend temperatures hovering around 95 degrees.
“We’re also trying to pull folks into our lobby to cool off,” Martinez said. “It’s a scary time,”
Despite the early high temperatures, Doña Ana County Emergency Manager Amanda Bowen said the heatwave is not hot enough to open public facilities to act as cooling centers. She noted that air temperatures need to exceed 110 degrees for several consecutive days in order to trigger emergency action.
“These thresholds are intended to guide activation when conditions present a clear life-safety concern, particularly for vulnerable populations,” Bowen said in a statement to Source NM.
City of Albuquerque officials did not respond to requests on Thursday for information about the city’s preparation for the heat wave. Albuquerque is forecast to experience highs in the 80s, with a potential 91 degree peak on Saturday afternoon.
If forecasts for Albuquerque and Clayton prove correct, New Mexico will experience its earliest 90-degree highs Saturday by four to six weeks, according to the National Weather Service in Albuquerque.
The state’s most populous city is already experiencing the hottest March in nearly 100 years, breaking high temperatures recorded in 1907 and 1971.
This is an extraordinary event,” State Climatologist Dave DuBois told Source NM. “We can get some of these highs as early as May, but it’s more like June in some locations.”
DuBois said it will take time for climatologists to determine the exact cause of the heat wave, but said that human-caused climate change raised the odds of an early and extreme temperature rise. While a similar heat wave was seen in the 1970s, he said these rare events may happen more often moving forward.
“It doesn’t surprise me that we’ve seen these kinds of extreme events pop up,” DuBois said. “They are still going to be infrequent, but it’s the greater likelihood of them coming up, that’s basically the fingerprints of climate change.”
