Every heat event the pipeline tracked between 2008-05-01 and 2008-09-30, 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
40.59 Mkm²·days
Longest
15days (#13)
Hottest
+14.2°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 #18 — 2008-09-03 → 2008-09-16 14 dayshigh on 7/14 d only
peak 2.31 M km² on 2008-09-07 · max +13.3 °C · mean +8.3 °C · burden 10.92 M km²·d · drift 1212 km (48.2 N 18.9 E → 38.0 N 24.3 E)
Event #13 — 2008-08-12 → 2008-08-26 15 daysheat dome · 13/15 d · Z500 +189 m
peak 1.68 M km² on 2008-08-16 · max +12.6 °C · mean +7.6 °C · burden 10.73 M km²·d · drift 1947 km (44.1 N 19.3 E → 44.5 N 43.8 E)
Event #8 — 2008-05-28 → 2008-06-10 14 daysheat dome · 11/14 d · Z500 +245 m
peak 400k km² on 2008-06-06 · max +13.2 °C · mean +8.9 °C · burden 2.74 M km²·d · drift 657 km (59.7 N 5.9 E → 57.9 N 16.7 E)
Event #7 — 2008-05-26 → 2008-06-08 14 daysheat dome · 10/14 d · Z500 +198 m
peak 480k km² on 2008-05-28 · max +12.3 °C · mean +7.7 °C · burden 2.60 M km²·d · drift 1708 km (42.5 N 19.6 E → 56.3 N 9.0 E)
Event #11 — 2008-07-23 → 2008-08-01 10 daysheat dome · 8/10 d · Z500 +224 m
peak 443k km² on 2008-07-27 · max +11.3 °C · mean +7.4 °C · burden 2.33 M km²·d · drift 128 km (59.3 N 8.5 E → 59.7 N 6.4 E)
Event #1 — 2008-05-01 → 2008-05-04 4 daysheat dome · 3/4 d · Z500 +260 m
peak 458k km² on 2008-05-02 · max +14.2 °C · mean +8.7 °C · burden 1.57 M km²·d · drift 229 km (65.4 N 23.8 E → 64.0 N 27.3 E)
Event #2 — 2008-05-04 → 2008-05-14 11 dayshigh on 4/11 d only
peak 250k km² on 2008-05-12 · max +10.7 °C · mean +7.4 °C · burden 1.49 M km²·d · drift 154 km (50.9 N 2.0 E → 50.5 N 4.1 E)
Event #3 — 2008-05-04 → 2008-05-14 11 daysheat dome · 8/11 d · Z500 +245 m
peak 205k km² on 2008-05-08 · max +10.2 °C · mean +7.0 °C · burden 1.38 M km²·d · drift 579 km (56.5 N -3.5 E → 51.3 N -3.6 E)
Event #14 — 2008-08-17 → 2008-08-29 13 dayshigh on 4/13 d only
peak 163k km² on 2008-08-24 · max +9.5 °C · mean +5.1 °C · burden 1.24 M km²·d · drift 45 km (40.0 N 32.0 E → 40.2 N 31.5 E)
Event #4 — 2008-05-05 → 2008-05-12 8 daysheat dome · 5/8 d · Z500 +245 m
peak 294k km² on 2008-05-10 · max +12.2 °C · mean +8.1 °C · burden 1.10 M km²·d · drift 476 km (58.9 N 7.9 E → 55.6 N 12.9 E)
Event #17 — 2008-09-03 → 2008-09-13 11 dayshigh on 4/11 d only
peak 130k km² on 2008-09-11 · max +11.4 °C · mean +6.2 °C · burden 815k km²·d · drift 639 km (44.0 N 12.6 E → 38.6 N 15.3 E)
Event #9 — 2008-06-22 → 2008-06-29 8 dayshigh on 1/8 d only
peak 233k km² on 2008-06-27 · max +7.8 °C · mean +4.3 °C · burden 781k km²·d · drift 550 km (36.9 N 35.6 E → 36.4 N 41.7 E)
Event #16 — 2008-09-03 → 2008-09-13 11 dayshigh on 2/11 d only
peak 140k km² on 2008-09-10 · max +11.6 °C · mean +6.2 °C · burden 752k km²·d · drift 142 km (35.2 N 10.4 E → 36.5 N 10.8 E)
Event #10 — 2008-07-19 → 2008-07-26 8 daysno overlying high
peak 135k km² on 2008-07-23 · max +10.4 °C · mean +5.8 °C · burden 559k km²·d · drift 748 km (38.4 N 29.3 E → 40.1 N 37.8 E)
Event #15 — 2008-08-18 → 2008-08-23 6 daysno overlying high
peak 138k km² on 2008-08-20 · max +7.4 °C · mean +4.3 °C · burden 456k km²·d · drift 154 km (36.7 N 35.3 E → 37.2 N 36.9 E)
Event #6 — 2008-05-25 → 2008-05-29 5 daysheat dome · 4/5 d · Z500 +170 m
peak 105k km² on 2008-05-27 · max +12.3 °C · mean +6.7 °C · burden 404k km²·d · drift 126 km (41.3 N 14.7 E → 40.7 N 16.0 E)
Event #12 — 2008-07-25 → 2008-08-01 8 dayshigh on 2/8 d only
peak 112k km² on 2008-07-27 · max +10.5 °C · mean +7.0 °C · burden 371k km²·d · drift 45 km (57.0 N 8.5 E → 57.0 N 9.3 E)
Event #5 — 2008-05-18 → 2008-05-22 5 dayshigh on 2/5 d only
peak 110k km² on 2008-05-20 · max +10.1 °C · mean +6.6 °C · burden 344k km²·d · drift 336 km (40.7 N 26.7 E → 39.9 N 30.5 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.