Every heat event the pipeline tracked between 2001-05-01 and 2001-09-30, with how each one grew, peaked and moved. Anomalies are against the 1991–2020 baseline.
Season at a glance
Events tracked
19
Total heat burden
49.55 Mkm²·days
Longest
27days (#11)
Hottest
+16.0°C (#6)
With a heat dome
5of 19 events
A heat dome is the stricter object: a tracked heat event with a closed 500 hPa anticyclone whose influence cap overlies it, after Loikith et al. (2026). Most heatwaves are not domes, so the label is a finding and not a synonym.
ERA5 daily maximum 2 m temperature over land, against the 1991–2020 climatology (p90 in a centred 15-day window). A heatwave cell is Tx above p90 on at least 3 consecutive days.
When the events ran
Overlapping bars are concurrent events in different places, not one event counted twice: each is a separately labelled cluster of contiguous heatwave cells.
How each event evolved
Event #11 — 2001-07-14 → 2001-08-09 27 dayshigh on 13/27 d only
peak 1.81 M km² on 2001-07-17 · max +12.2 °C · mean +7.0 °C · burden 19.47 M km²·d · drift 2211 km (49.8 N 24.9 E → 35.9 N 44.5 E)
Event #17 — 2001-09-08 → 2001-09-23 16 dayshigh on 8/16 d only
peak 1.46 M km² on 2001-09-19 · max +10.4 °C · mean +6.5 °C · burden 8.78 M km²·d · drift 841 km (68.2 N 32.6 E → 60.7 N 35.0 E)
Event #3 — 2001-05-25 → 2001-06-08 15 daysheat dome · 10/15 d · Z500 +220 m
peak 1.11 M km² on 2001-05-29 · max +13.1 °C · mean +7.4 °C · burden 5.38 M km²·d · drift 230 km (38.0 N -5.2 E → 37.5 N -2.6 E)
Event #7 — 2001-06-10 → 2001-06-16 7 daysheat dome · 4/7 d · Z500 +128 m
peak 517k km² on 2001-06-14 · max +9.3 °C · mean +6.0 °C · burden 2.19 M km²·d · drift 663 km (37.1 N 33.0 E → 38.1 N 40.4 E)
Event #16 — 2001-08-22 → 2001-08-29 8 dayshigh on 2/8 d only
peak 598k km² on 2001-08-25 · max +13.8 °C · mean +8.0 °C · burden 2.09 M km²·d · drift 809 km (51.2 N 6.0 E → 44.0 N 5.3 E)
Event #19 — 2001-09-18 → 2001-09-27 10 dayshigh on 2/10 d only
peak 406k km² on 2001-09-25 · max +8.6 °C · mean +5.4 °C · burden 1.80 M km²·d · drift 139 km (38.0 N 36.5 E → 37.4 N 37.9 E)
Event #8 — 2001-06-19 → 2001-06-27 9 dayshigh on 1/9 d only
peak 311k km² on 2001-06-22 · max +10.1 °C · mean +6.4 °C · burden 1.47 M km²·d · drift 696 km (42.0 N -7.3 E → 37.9 N -1.0 E)
Event #9 — 2001-06-19 → 2001-06-28 10 dayshigh on 4/10 d only
peak 277k km² on 2001-06-23 · max +11.3 °C · mean +6.9 °C · burden 1.36 M km²·d · drift 532 km (67.7 N 16.4 E → 63.0 N 17.8 E)
Event #15 — 2001-08-16 → 2001-08-22 7 daysheat dome · 5/7 d · Z500 +158 m
peak 280k km² on 2001-08-19 · max +8.9 °C · mean +6.6 °C · burden 1.21 M km²·d · drift 441 km (52.5 N 22.2 E → 52.4 N 28.7 E)
Event #1 — 2001-05-01 → 2001-05-05 5 dayshigh on 2/4 d only
peak 310k km² on 2001-05-02 · max +10.3 °C · mean +7.3 °C · burden 1.01 M km²·d · drift 382 km (48.3 N 15.3 E → 49.8 N 20.0 E)
Event #10 — 2001-07-03 → 2001-07-09 7 daysheat dome · 6/7 d · Z500 +175 m
peak 169k km² on 2001-07-07 · max +10.5 °C · mean +7.0 °C · burden 845k km²·d · drift 141 km (60.5 N 16.3 E → 59.4 N 15.2 E)
Event #12 — 2001-08-03 → 2001-08-12 10 dayshigh on 3/10 d only
peak 161k km² on 2001-08-10 · max +8.5 °C · mean +4.8 °C · burden 630k km²·d · drift 387 km (41.7 N 23.3 E → 42.5 N 27.8 E)
Event #6 — 2001-06-07 → 2001-06-13 7 dayshigh on 1/7 d only
peak 124k km² on 2001-06-08 · max +16.0 °C · mean +9.9 °C · burden 595k km²·d · drift 279 km (67.9 N 36.0 E → 69.6 N 30.8 E)
Event #5 — 2001-06-07 → 2001-06-13 7 dayshigh on 1/7 d only
peak 122k km² on 2001-06-08 · max +15.6 °C · mean +10.0 °C · burden 504k km²·d · drift 109 km (65.7 N 42.2 E → 65.5 N 44.4 E)
Event #13 — 2001-08-05 → 2001-08-12 8 daysno overlying high
peak 106k km² on 2001-08-11 · max +6.9 °C · mean +4.0 °C · burden 503k km²·d · drift 407 km (37.4 N 28.8 E → 37.6 N 33.4 E)
Event #2 — 2001-05-09 → 2001-05-14 6 dayshigh on 2/6 d only
peak 136k km² on 2001-05-11 · max +11.3 °C · mean +7.0 °C · burden 494k km²·d · drift 40 km (57.1 N -5.9 E → 57.1 N -5.2 E)
Event #18 — 2001-09-12 → 2001-09-16 5 daysno overlying high
peak 123k km² on 2001-09-13 · max +12.0 °C · mean +8.5 °C · burden 455k km²·d · drift 343 km (57.1 N 43.5 E → 60.0 N 41.5 E)
Event #14 — 2001-08-06 → 2001-08-14 9 dayshigh on 3/9 d only
peak 115k km² on 2001-08-12 · max +8.4 °C · mean +5.5 °C · burden 389k km²·d · drift 315 km (44.6 N 38.7 E → 42.4 N 41.2 E)
Event #4 — 2001-05-29 → 2001-06-02 5 daysheat dome · 3/5 d · Z500 +136 m
peak 114k km² on 2001-05-31 · max +9.9 °C · mean +5.8 °C · burden 377k km²·d · drift 207 km (39.6 N 23.4 E → 37.8 N 23.0 E)
Filled area is the event footprint in km² (left axis); the solid line is the peak anomaly inside it and the dashed line the mean (right axis). The small panel is the centroid path, circles sized by area and the ring marking day one. Drift is the straight-line start-to-end distance, so a dome that wandered and returned reports a small number.