Every heat event the pipeline tracked between 2011-05-01 and 2011-09-30, with how each one grew, peaked and moved. Anomalies are against the 1991–2020 baseline.
Season at a glance
Events tracked
23
Total heat burden
52.71 Mkm²·days
Longest
18days (#11)
Hottest
+17.6°C (#6)
With a heat dome
14of 23 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 — 2011-07-19 → 2011-08-05 18 daysheat dome · 12/18 d · Z500 +219 m
peak 1.21 M km² on 2011-07-28 · max +13.0 °C · mean +7.0 °C · burden 9.49 M km²·d · drift 2631 km (60.4 N 32.7 E → 38.0 N 44.3 E)
Event #13 — 2011-08-16 → 2011-08-27 12 daysheat dome · 8/12 d · Z500 +164 m
peak 991k km² on 2011-08-23 · max +12.3 °C · mean +7.0 °C · burden 6.50 M km²·d · drift 1770 km (39.6 N -2.8 E → 45.4 N 17.3 E)
Event #18 — 2011-09-07 → 2011-09-19 13 daysheat dome · 8/13 d · Z500 +123 m
peak 1.08 M km² on 2011-09-13 · max +12.8 °C · mean +7.4 °C · burden 5.80 M km²·d · drift 276 km (44.2 N 16.8 E → 43.7 N 20.1 E)
Event #21 — 2011-09-21 → 2011-09-30 10 daysheat dome · 7/10 d · Z500 +253 m
peak 990k km² on 2011-09-28 · max +11.3 °C · mean +7.0 °C · burden 4.75 M km²·d · drift 726 km (45.9 N 13.2 E → 48.0 N 4.2 E)
Event #6 — 2011-06-06 → 2011-06-12 7 daysheat dome · 7/7 d · Z500 +274 m
peak 836k km² on 2011-06-09 · max +17.6 °C · mean +10.8 °C · burden 3.58 M km²·d · drift 224 km (63.4 N 24.3 E → 63.0 N 20.0 E)
Event #8 — 2011-06-28 → 2011-07-03 6 daysheat dome · 5/6 d · Z500 +229 m
peak 785k km² on 2011-07-01 · max +13.7 °C · mean +8.1 °C · burden 2.85 M km²·d · drift 870 km (65.2 N 24.4 E → 61.5 N 39.8 E)
Event #9 — 2011-07-06 → 2011-07-12 7 dayshigh on 2/7 d only
peak 568k km² on 2011-07-09 · max +14.8 °C · mean +7.7 °C · burden 2.35 M km²·d · drift 489 km (60.7 N 29.1 E → 63.9 N 35.8 E)
Event #5 — 2011-06-05 → 2011-06-12 8 dayshigh on 2/8 d only
peak 495k km² on 2011-06-07 · max +11.7 °C · mean +7.6 °C · burden 2.11 M km²·d · drift 579 km (54.1 N 21.3 E → 58.5 N 26.2 E)
Event #12 — 2011-08-09 → 2011-08-17 9 dayshigh on 2/9 d only
peak 396k km² on 2011-08-14 · max +10.7 °C · mean +7.6 °C · burden 1.87 M km²·d · drift 484 km (56.2 N 44.3 E → 55.5 N 36.6 E)
Event #4 — 2011-05-29 → 2011-06-03 6 daysheat dome · 4/6 d · Z500 +256 m
peak 485k km² on 2011-06-01 · max +10.3 °C · mean +7.5 °C · burden 1.80 M km²·d · drift 249 km (50.7 N 33.6 E → 50.6 N 30.1 E)
Event #19 — 2011-09-07 → 2011-09-18 12 daysheat dome · 9/12 d · Z500 +123 m
peak 218k km² on 2011-09-15 · max +8.7 °C · mean +5.4 °C · burden 1.67 M km²·d · drift 658 km (44.7 N 7.8 E → 41.7 N 14.8 E)
Event #1 — 2011-05-05 → 2011-05-13 9 dayshigh on 1/9 d only
peak 354k km² on 2011-05-09 · max +12.1 °C · mean +7.8 °C · burden 1.59 M km²·d · drift 183 km (45.5 N 6.8 E → 44.3 N 5.1 E)
Event #2 — 2011-05-07 → 2011-05-12 6 dayshigh on 3/6 d only
peak 389k km² on 2011-05-10 · max +14.2 °C · mean +9.1 °C · burden 1.49 M km²·d · drift 595 km (61.3 N 8.1 E → 66.0 N 13.8 E)
Event #10 — 2011-07-07 → 2011-07-15 9 dayshigh on 3/9 d only
peak 292k km² on 2011-07-10 · max +11.2 °C · mean +7.1 °C · burden 1.28 M km²·d · drift 293 km (45.8 N 16.7 E → 43.5 N 18.7 E)
Event #17 — 2011-09-06 → 2011-09-18 13 daysheat dome · 8/13 d · Z500 +118 m
peak 235k km² on 2011-09-09 · max +8.8 °C · mean +5.3 °C · burden 1.05 M km²·d · drift 580 km (37.3 N -7.0 E → 39.0 N -0.8 E)
Event #3 — 2011-05-20 → 2011-05-27 8 dayshigh on 3/8 d only
peak 229k km² on 2011-05-25 · max +9.3 °C · mean +6.1 °C · burden 887k km²·d · drift 321 km (45.4 N 8.6 E → 44.5 N 12.5 E)
Event #16 — 2011-09-05 → 2011-09-12 8 dayshigh on 3/8 d only
peak 183k km² on 2011-09-08 · max +8.2 °C · mean +6.1 °C · burden 759k km²·d · drift 533 km (70.5 N 26.0 E → 68.2 N 38.1 E)
Event #22 — 2011-09-27 → 2011-09-30 4 daysheat dome · 3/4 d · Z500 +253 m
peak 220k km² on 2011-09-28 · max +12.5 °C · mean +8.1 °C · burden 699k km²·d · drift 109 km (53.0 N -1.5 E → 53.8 N -2.4 E)
Event #20 — 2011-09-12 → 2011-09-18 7 daysheat dome · 4/7 d · Z500 +118 m
peak 153k km² on 2011-09-13 · max +7.8 °C · mean +5.8 °C · burden 589k km²·d · drift 228 km (38.3 N -4.7 E → 37.8 N -2.1 E)
Event #15 — 2011-08-29 → 2011-09-01 4 daysheat dome · 3/4 d · Z500 +121 m
peak 147k km² on 2011-08-30 · max +9.5 °C · mean +7.5 °C · burden 457k km²·d · drift 212 km (56.0 N 41.9 E → 54.1 N 41.1 E)
Event #23 — 2011-09-28 → 2011-09-30 3 daysheat dome · 2/3 d · Z500 +253 m
peak 194k km² on 2011-09-29 · max +12.4 °C · mean +8.5 °C · burden 447k km²·d · drift 10 km (61.0 N 12.1 E → 60.9 N 12.0 E)
Event #7 — 2011-06-25 → 2011-06-28 4 dayshigh on 1/4 d only
peak 129k km² on 2011-06-26 · max +11.5 °C · mean +7.0 °C · burden 387k km²·d · drift 331 km (42.1 N -5.2 E → 40.8 N -1.7 E)
Event #14 — 2011-08-26 → 2011-08-28 3 daysheat dome · 3/3 d · Z500 +182 m
peak 109k km² on 2011-08-27 · max +9.2 °C · mean +6.3 °C · burden 324k km²·d · drift 3 km (60.8 N 27.8 E → 60.8 N 27.8 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.