How to Weather California’s Extreme Heat

By Jill Cowan 

Californians are getting used to devastating, lengthy fire seasons. And if this year and the last are any indication (and they probably are), we’re also going to have to get used to extreme heat.

This year, heat waves have walloped the Pacific Northwest in particular. But Death Valley hit a whopping 130 degrees this year, as it did last year — possibly the hottest temperature ever reliably recorded on Earth — and temperatures across the state have prompted heat warnings as they have deepened the effects of the drought.