Every heat event the pipeline tracked between 2005-05-01 and 2005-09-30, with how each one grew, peaked and moved. Anomalies are against the 1991–2020 baseline.
Season at a glance
Events tracked
18
Total heat burden
43.59 Mkm²·days
Longest
14days (#1)
Hottest
+15.9°C (#1)
With a heat dome
8of 18 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 #1 — 2005-05-19 → 2005-06-01 14 daysheat dome · 13/14 d · Z500 +227 m
peak 2.29 M km² on 2005-05-29 · max +15.9 °C · mean +8.4 °C · burden 16.68 M km²·d · drift 709 km (54.0 N 43.5 E → 47.9 N 40.4 E)
Event #13 — 2005-09-03 → 2005-09-13 11 daysheat dome · 9/11 d · Z500 +199 m
peak 1.09 M km² on 2005-09-09 · max +11.4 °C · mean +7.3 °C · burden 5.70 M km²·d · drift 2013 km (49.7 N 5.1 E → 50.4 N 33.5 E)
Event #5 — 2005-06-30 → 2005-07-13 14 dayshigh on 6/14 d only
peak 650k km² on 2005-07-09 · max +12.5 °C · mean +7.6 °C · burden 4.51 M km²·d · drift 1143 km (67.9 N 17.5 E → 57.6 N 16.2 E)
Event #8 — 2005-07-26 → 2005-08-03 9 daysheat dome · 6/9 d · Z500 +122 m
peak 880k km² on 2005-07-30 · max +10.7 °C · mean +6.3 °C · burden 3.29 M km²·d · drift 568 km (39.4 N 16.1 E → 42.1 N 21.8 E)
Event #18 — 2005-09-25 → 2005-09-30 6 dayshigh on 3/6 d only
peak 732k km² on 2005-09-28 · max +9.8 °C · mean +6.6 °C · burden 2.80 M km²·d · drift 552 km (62.3 N 29.9 E → 62.5 N 40.6 E)
Event #3 — 2005-06-17 → 2005-06-25 9 daysheat dome · 6/9 d · Z500 +224 m
peak 375k km² on 2005-06-19 · max +13.2 °C · mean +8.2 °C · burden 1.97 M km²·d · drift 389 km (45.8 N 0.9 E → 48.8 N 3.8 E)
Event #2 — 2005-06-03 → 2005-06-10 8 dayshigh on 3/8 d only
peak 255k km² on 2005-06-06 · max +14.1 °C · mean +7.9 °C · burden 1.15 M km²·d · drift 338 km (37.6 N -3.1 E → 39.8 N -5.7 E)
Event #17 — 2005-09-24 → 2005-09-28 5 dayshigh on 1/5 d only
peak 330k km² on 2005-09-26 · max +7.8 °C · mean +6.1 °C · burden 1.03 M km²·d · drift 435 km (53.9 N 17.4 E → 55.1 N 23.8 E)
Event #11 — 2005-08-14 → 2005-08-20 7 daysno overlying high
peak 251k km² on 2005-08-18 · max +8.9 °C · mean +4.9 °C · burden 1.02 M km²·d · drift 721 km (41.6 N 34.4 E → 38.7 N 42.0 E)
Event #4 — 2005-06-22 → 2005-06-29 8 dayshigh on 2/8 d only
peak 303k km² on 2005-06-27 · max +11.9 °C · mean +6.7 °C · burden 964k km²·d · drift 240 km (45.3 N 11.8 E → 43.6 N 9.9 E)
Event #10 — 2005-08-07 → 2005-08-13 7 daysheat dome · 5/7 d · Z500 +224 m
peak 222k km² on 2005-08-09 · max +11.0 °C · mean +7.8 °C · burden 802k km²·d · drift 557 km (61.2 N 42.3 E → 66.0 N 44.9 E)
Event #7 — 2005-07-11 → 2005-07-17 7 dayshigh on 1/7 d only
peak 199k km² on 2005-07-15 · max +10.1 °C · mean +7.1 °C · burden 688k km²·d · drift 393 km (46.8 N -1.7 E → 46.4 N 3.4 E)
Event #9 — 2005-08-03 → 2005-08-08 6 dayshigh on 3/6 d only
peak 196k km² on 2005-08-06 · max +12.2 °C · mean +6.4 °C · burden 670k km²·d · drift 410 km (39.9 N -8.7 E → 41.8 N -4.5 E)
Event #6 — 2005-07-08 → 2005-07-14 7 daysheat dome · 4/7 d · Z500 +299 m
peak 140k km² on 2005-07-11 · max +10.7 °C · mean +6.3 °C · burden 632k km²·d · drift 518 km (56.5 N -3.8 E → 51.9 N -2.9 E)
Event #15 — 2005-09-12 → 2005-09-19 8 dayshigh on 1/8 d only
peak 122k km² on 2005-09-16 · max +10.9 °C · mean +7.6 °C · burden 609k km²·d · drift 63 km (47.2 N 44.8 E → 46.7 N 44.5 E)
Event #12 — 2005-08-23 → 2005-08-27 5 daysheat dome · 3/5 d · Z500 +201 m
peak 116k km² on 2005-08-25 · max +10.2 °C · mean +6.8 °C · burden 411k km²·d · drift 24 km (68.7 N 35.0 E → 68.5 N 35.3 E)
Event #14 — 2005-09-03 → 2005-09-06 4 daysheat dome · 3/4 d · Z500 +204 m
peak 117k km² on 2005-09-04 · max +8.4 °C · mean +5.0 °C · burden 377k km²·d · drift 78 km (55.0 N -4.4 E → 55.0 N -3.2 E)
Event #16 — 2005-09-23 → 2005-09-26 4 daysno overlying high
peak 101k km² on 2005-09-25 · max +6.9 °C · mean +5.1 °C · burden 280k km²·d · drift 216 km (56.5 N 12.8 E → 57.9 N 15.3 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.