Every heat event the pipeline tracked between 2015-05-01 and 2015-09-30, with how each one grew, peaked and moved. Anomalies are against the 1991–2020 baseline.
Season at a glance
Events tracked
21
Total heat burden
99.94 Mkm²·days
Longest
32days (#9)
Hottest
+17.6°C (#1)
With a heat dome
11of 21 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 #9 — 2015-06-25 → 2015-07-26 32 daysheat dome · 25/32 d · Z500 +249 m
peak 1.88 M km² on 2015-07-06 · max +16.0 °C · mean +7.3 °C · burden 23.78 M km²·d · drift 2847 km (43.2 N -7.3 E → 48.0 N 29.0 E)
Event #21 — 2015-09-13 → 2015-09-30 18 daysheat dome · 11/18 d · Z500 +241 m
peak 1.85 M km² on 2015-09-24 · max +16.0 °C · mean +9.9 °C · burden 18.17 M km²·d · drift 1728 km (44.1 N 18.0 E → 47.0 N 39.9 E)
Event #17 — 2015-08-26 → 2015-09-16 22 daysheat dome · 12/22 d · Z500 +192 m
peak 1.89 M km² on 2015-09-01 · max +14.8 °C · mean +8.1 °C · burden 17.41 M km²·d · drift 3022 km (45.9 N 3.4 E → 35.3 N 36.8 E)
Event #14 — 2015-08-03 → 2015-08-16 14 daysheat dome · 10/14 d · Z500 +180 m
peak 1.54 M km² on 2015-08-12 · max +13.5 °C · mean +7.7 °C · burden 13.32 M km²·d · drift 463 km (50.9 N 18.1 E → 48.0 N 22.6 E)
Event #16 — 2015-08-15 → 2015-08-28 14 daysheat dome · 13/14 d · Z500 +271 m
peak 833k km² on 2015-08-20 · max +10.9 °C · mean +6.8 °C · burden 6.60 M km²·d · drift 250 km (66.1 N 12.7 E → 68.1 N 15.5 E)
Event #3 — 2015-05-02 → 2015-05-18 17 daysheat dome · 11/17 d · Z500 +229 m
peak 912k km² on 2015-05-11 · max +15.8 °C · mean +8.6 °C · burden 4.63 M km²·d · drift 1224 km (37.8 N 14.9 E → 41.7 N 1.5 E)
Event #18 — 2015-09-10 → 2015-09-16 7 daysheat dome · 5/7 d · Z500 +339 m
peak 752k km² on 2015-09-12 · max +10.6 °C · mean +6.4 °C · burden 2.85 M km²·d · drift 468 km (67.5 N 23.5 E → 68.0 N 34.6 E)
Event #7 — 2015-06-02 → 2015-06-09 8 dayshigh on 4/8 d only
peak 568k km² on 2015-06-06 · max +13.4 °C · mean +6.9 °C · burden 2.79 M km²·d · drift 90 km (43.0 N 0.1 E → 42.6 N 1.0 E)
Event #6 — 2015-05-22 → 2015-06-01 11 daysheat dome · 8/11 d · Z500 +231 m
peak 346k km² on 2015-05-28 · max +13.2 °C · mean +9.5 °C · burden 1.84 M km²·d · drift 426 km (52.9 N 39.4 E → 55.4 N 44.4 E)
Event #1 — 2015-05-01 → 2015-05-09 9 daysheat dome · 7/8 d · Z500 +187 m
peak 239k km² on 2015-05-03 · max +17.6 °C · mean +10.3 °C · burden 1.34 M km²·d · drift 593 km (35.9 N 4.5 E → 35.3 N 11.0 E)
Event #15 — 2015-08-07 → 2015-08-21 15 daysno overlying high
peak 222k km² on 2015-08-14 · max +10.8 °C · mean +5.7 °C · burden 1.34 M km²·d · drift 282 km (42.3 N 41.8 E → 39.7 N 41.8 E)
Event #13 — 2015-07-28 → 2015-08-06 10 dayshigh on 5/10 d only
peak 201k km² on 2015-08-01 · max +12.3 °C · mean +6.0 °C · burden 1.01 M km²·d · drift 163 km (41.1 N 44.1 E → 39.7 N 43.4 E)
Event #5 — 2015-05-16 → 2015-05-22 7 dayshigh on 2/7 d only
peak 259k km² on 2015-05-19 · max +11.1 °C · mean +7.1 °C · burden 960k km²·d · drift 554 km (39.4 N 30.1 E → 39.9 N 36.5 E)
Event #10 — 2015-06-29 → 2015-07-15 17 dayshigh on 6/17 d only
peak 113k km² on 2015-07-02 · max +9.4 °C · mean +5.4 °C · burden 714k km²·d · drift 117 km (39.2 N 44.5 E → 38.1 N 44.4 E)
Event #12 — 2015-07-26 → 2015-08-01 7 dayshigh on 2/7 d only
peak 154k km² on 2015-07-29 · max +7.5 °C · mean +4.4 °C · burden 609k km²·d · drift 319 km (41.3 N 28.0 E → 38.5 N 27.0 E)
Event #2 — 2015-05-01 → 2015-05-06 6 daysheat dome · 3/5 d · Z500 +169 m
peak 132k km² on 2015-05-03 · max +11.9 °C · mean +7.6 °C · burden 483k km²·d · drift 251 km (38.8 N -1.5 E → 40.2 N 0.8 E)
Event #8 — 2015-06-23 → 2015-06-28 6 dayshigh on 1/6 d only
peak 127k km² on 2015-06-26 · max +10.6 °C · mean +7.6 °C · burden 479k km²·d · drift 828 km (45.5 N 44.6 E → 52.9 N 44.3 E)
Event #20 — 2015-09-13 → 2015-09-19 7 dayshigh on 1/7 d only
peak 107k km² on 2015-09-16 · max +14.6 °C · mean +7.2 °C · burden 448k km²·d · drift 99 km (41.5 N 15.5 E → 40.8 N 16.1 E)
Event #11 — 2015-07-25 → 2015-07-28 4 dayshigh on 2/4 d only
peak 147k km² on 2015-07-26 · max +10.0 °C · mean +6.9 °C · burden 440k km²·d · drift 278 km (48.7 N 38.3 E → 50.9 N 40.1 E)
Event #4 — 2015-05-03 → 2015-05-08 6 daysheat dome · 4/6 d · Z500 +187 m
peak 115k km² on 2015-05-06 · max +13.6 °C · mean +7.5 °C · burden 409k km²·d · drift 71 km (40.0 N 21.3 E → 40.4 N 20.6 E)
Event #19 — 2015-09-12 → 2015-09-19 8 daysno overlying high
peak 107k km² on 2015-09-16 · max +10.2 °C · mean +6.3 °C · burden 322k km²·d · drift 312 km (36.7 N 9.0 E → 35.6 N 5.8 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.