Every heat event the pipeline tracked between 2012-05-01 and 2012-09-30, with how each one grew, peaked and moved. Anomalies are against the 1991–2020 baseline.
Season at a glance
Events tracked
24
Total heat burden
91.46 Mkm²·days
Longest
32days (#12)
Hottest
+14.9°C (#19)
With a heat dome
10of 24 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 #12 — 2012-06-27 → 2012-07-28 32 dayshigh on 11/32 d only
peak 1.53 M km² on 2012-07-08 · max +12.8 °C · mean +6.6 °C · burden 18.43 M km²·d · drift 1826 km (43.1 N 11.9 E → 39.2 N 33.1 E)
Event #19 — 2012-08-15 → 2012-08-27 13 daysheat dome · 7/13 d · Z500 +196 m
peak 1.76 M km² on 2012-08-21 · max +14.9 °C · mean +7.3 °C · burden 12.34 M km²·d · drift 2314 km (41.9 N 2.2 E → 43.4 N 30.5 E)
Event #1 — 2012-05-01 → 2012-05-17 17 dayshigh on 7/17 d only
peak 1.37 M km² on 2012-05-03 · max +13.3 °C · mean +8.6 °C · burden 11.72 M km²·d · drift 1272 km (47.2 N 25.1 E → 47.2 N 41.9 E)
Event #10 — 2012-06-16 → 2012-06-26 11 dayshigh on 3/11 d only
peak 1.20 M km² on 2012-06-20 · max +13.2 °C · mean +6.9 °C · burden 6.24 M km²·d · drift 1537 km (45.2 N 15.5 E → 45.0 N 35.1 E)
Event #14 — 2012-07-20 → 2012-08-03 15 daysheat dome · 9/15 d · Z500 +180 m
peak 1.15 M km² on 2012-07-29 · max +11.5 °C · mean +6.4 °C · burden 6.05 M km²·d · drift 990 km (43.4 N 25.0 E → 51.3 N 31.4 E)
Event #15 — 2012-08-02 → 2012-08-10 9 daysheat dome · 6/9 d · Z500 +136 m
peak 1.26 M km² on 2012-08-06 · max +12.8 °C · mean +6.8 °C · burden 5.49 M km²·d · drift 1294 km (48.9 N 32.0 E → 38.0 N 26.1 E)
Event #24 — 2012-09-23 → 2012-09-30 8 daysheat dome · 6/8 d · Z500 +153 m
peak 917k km² on 2012-09-29 · max +13.6 °C · mean +7.7 °C · burden 5.13 M km²·d · drift 682 km (43.3 N 19.5 E → 41.1 N 27.3 E)
Event #4 — 2012-05-17 → 2012-05-28 12 daysheat dome · 8/12 d · Z500 +314 m
peak 1.19 M km² on 2012-05-22 · max +12.1 °C · mean +8.1 °C · burden 4.79 M km²·d · drift 2502 km (58.1 N 44.3 E → 52.3 N 5.6 E)
Event #8 — 2012-06-09 → 2012-06-23 15 dayshigh on 6/15 d only
peak 748k km² on 2012-06-14 · max +11.6 °C · mean +5.9 °C · burden 4.37 M km²·d · drift 243 km (37.7 N 29.5 E → 38.6 N 26.9 E)
Event #9 — 2012-06-09 → 2012-06-16 8 daysheat dome · 7/8 d · Z500 +176 m
peak 757k km² on 2012-06-13 · max +13.9 °C · mean +7.9 °C · burden 3.28 M km²·d · drift 901 km (48.9 N 31.8 E → 49.6 N 44.1 E)
Event #2 — 2012-05-08 → 2012-05-18 11 daysheat dome · 8/11 d · Z500 +233 m
peak 521k km² on 2012-05-10 · max +14.0 °C · mean +8.6 °C · burden 2.91 M km²·d · drift 274 km (41.1 N -2.5 E → 38.7 N -2.0 E)
Event #11 — 2012-06-23 → 2012-06-30 8 dayshigh on 2/8 d only
peak 419k km² on 2012-06-26 · max +11.9 °C · mean +6.7 °C · burden 1.73 M km²·d · drift 284 km (37.8 N -3.1 E → 39.2 N -0.4 E)
Event #21 — 2012-09-08 → 2012-09-14 7 dayshigh on 2/7 d only
peak 488k km² on 2012-09-10 · max +11.3 °C · mean +7.2 °C · burden 1.64 M km²·d · drift 1341 km (48.8 N 7.1 E → 47.0 N 25.0 E)
Event #5 — 2012-05-20 → 2012-05-28 9 dayshigh on 4/9 d only
peak 262k km² on 2012-05-23 · max +13.1 °C · mean +8.9 °C · burden 1.17 M km²·d · drift 369 km (56.1 N 12.9 E → 58.4 N 8.5 E)
Event #6 — 2012-05-22 → 2012-05-29 8 dayshigh on 4/8 d only
peak 189k km² on 2012-05-26 · max +11.1 °C · mean +7.4 °C · burden 1.12 M km²·d · drift 229 km (54.0 N -2.5 E → 52.0 N -3.1 E)
Event #16 — 2012-08-08 → 2012-08-12 5 dayshigh on 1/5 d only
peak 359k km² on 2012-08-10 · max +11.4 °C · mean +6.2 °C · burden 1.11 M km²·d · drift 573 km (43.1 N -3.5 E → 38.1 N -1.8 E)
Event #20 — 2012-08-31 → 2012-09-06 7 dayshigh on 2/7 d only
peak 132k km² on 2012-09-03 · max +9.4 °C · mean +7.4 °C · burden 682k km²·d · drift 312 km (47.2 N 22.3 E → 46.2 N 26.2 E)
Event #7 — 2012-05-29 → 2012-06-03 6 dayshigh on 1/6 d only
peak 191k km² on 2012-06-01 · max +10.0 °C · mean +7.0 °C · burden 624k km²·d · drift 453 km (42.5 N 2.7 E → 39.2 N -0.5 E)
Event #22 — 2012-09-19 → 2012-09-24 6 daysheat dome · 4/6 d · Z500 +99 m
peak 178k km² on 2012-09-22 · max +10.7 °C · mean +7.3 °C · burden 591k km²·d · drift 268 km (35.3 N 4.8 E → 36.0 N 7.6 E)
Event #13 — 2012-07-08 → 2012-07-16 9 dayshigh on 2/9 d only
peak 110k km² on 2012-07-09 · max +9.4 °C · mean +5.3 °C · burden 484k km²·d · drift 492 km (42.8 N 13.3 E → 39.7 N 17.6 E)
Event #23 — 2012-09-23 → 2012-09-30 8 daysheat dome · 5/8 d · Z500 +153 m
peak 115k km² on 2012-09-29 · max +11.0 °C · mean +6.4 °C · burden 462k km²·d · drift 84 km (38.3 N 15.7 E → 39.1 N 15.6 E)
Event #18 — 2012-08-14 → 2012-08-18 5 daysno overlying high
peak 109k km² on 2012-08-17 · max +10.1 °C · mean +5.2 °C · burden 378k km²·d · drift 330 km (35.4 N 6.7 E → 35.7 N 3.0 E)
Event #17 — 2012-08-13 → 2012-08-17 5 daysheat dome · 3/5 d · Z500 +229 m
peak 100k km² on 2012-08-15 · max +8.4 °C · mean +6.0 °C · burden 375k km²·d · drift 274 km (68.6 N 21.7 E → 66.7 N 25.6 E)
Event #3 — 2012-05-09 → 2012-05-13 5 dayshigh on 2/5 d only
peak 179k km² on 2012-05-12 · max +11.6 °C · mean +7.7 °C · burden 320k km²·d · drift 759 km (47.3 N 13.8 E → 43.3 N 5.9 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.