Every heat event the pipeline tracked between 2024-05-01 and 2024-09-30, 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
169.36 Mkm²·days
Longest
87days (#14)
Hottest
+16.7°C (#4)
With a heat dome
8of 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 #14 — 2024-07-06 → 2024-09-30 87 dayshigh on 40/87 d only
peak 2.71 M km² on 2024-09-08 · max +14.0 °C · mean +8.0 °C · burden 84.15 M km²·d · drift 2370 km (39.3 N 16.3 E → 52.4 N 40.6 E)
Event #13 — 2024-06-25 → 2024-07-24 30 daysheat dome · 17/30 d · Z500 +213 m
peak 1.92 M km² on 2024-07-16 · max +14.0 °C · mean +7.6 °C · burden 33.36 M km²·d · drift 2509 km (61.3 N 24.7 E → 38.8 N 21.0 E)
Event #8 — 2024-05-30 → 2024-06-27 29 dayshigh on 11/29 d only
peak 1.40 M km² on 2024-06-04 · max +14.6 °C · mean +6.8 °C · burden 17.64 M km²·d · drift 1972 km (52.5 N 44.4 E → 38.0 N 29.6 E)
Event #4 — 2024-05-10 → 2024-06-06 28 daysheat dome · 23/28 d · Z500 +281 m
peak 1.38 M km² on 2024-05-31 · max +16.7 °C · mean +9.3 °C · burden 15.65 M km²·d · drift 1284 km (60.0 N 8.0 E → 62.5 N 31.6 E)
Event #15 — 2024-07-14 → 2024-07-28 15 dayshigh on 6/15 d only
peak 436k km² on 2024-07-24 · max +13.2 °C · mean +7.3 °C · burden 2.92 M km²·d · drift 205 km (69.4 N 23.1 E → 69.9 N 28.3 E)
Event #11 — 2024-06-16 → 2024-06-26 11 dayshigh on 4/11 d only
peak 510k km² on 2024-06-20 · max +12.8 °C · mean +7.0 °C · burden 2.83 M km²·d · drift 486 km (42.4 N 25.0 E → 39.4 N 20.7 E)
Event #18 — 2024-08-03 → 2024-08-27 25 dayshigh on 5/25 d only
peak 239k km² on 2024-08-13 · max +12.3 °C · mean +7.2 °C · burden 2.61 M km²·d · drift 999 km (68.7 N 17.3 E → 67.2 N 41.0 E)
Event #2 — 2024-05-01 → 2024-05-06 6 daysheat dome · 4/6 d · Z500 +220 m
peak 356k km² on 2024-05-03 · max +13.4 °C · mean +8.2 °C · burden 1.36 M km²·d · drift 295 km (62.9 N 12.6 E → 61.9 N 7.3 E)
Event #1 — 2024-05-01 → 2024-05-05 5 dayshigh on 1/5 d only
peak 298k km² on 2024-05-03 · max +10.2 °C · mean +7.7 °C · burden 1.12 M km²·d · drift 152 km (53.1 N 17.9 E → 52.6 N 20.0 E)
Event #19 — 2024-08-18 → 2024-08-24 7 daysno overlying high
peak 311k km² on 2024-08-21 · max +10.3 °C · mean +5.8 °C · burden 1.10 M km²·d · drift 671 km (40.4 N 35.7 E → 39.6 N 43.5 E)
Event #3 — 2024-05-07 → 2024-05-21 15 dayshigh on 7/15 d only
peak 200k km² on 2024-05-10 · max +10.8 °C · mean +6.8 °C · burden 1.04 M km²·d · drift 680 km (50.8 N -3.8 E → 56.8 N -4.7 E)
Event #21 — 2024-09-17 → 2024-09-23 7 daysheat dome · 4/7 d · Z500 +368 m
peak 284k km² on 2024-09-20 · max +11.3 °C · mean +7.0 °C · burden 951k km²·d · drift 468 km (60.1 N 8.0 E → 56.7 N 12.8 E)
Event #12 — 2024-06-24 → 2024-06-28 5 daysheat dome · 4/5 d · Z500 +213 m
peak 221k km² on 2024-06-26 · max +12.0 °C · mean +7.4 °C · burden 834k km²·d · drift 335 km (60.8 N 10.8 E → 59.9 N 16.6 E)
Event #5 — 2024-05-12 → 2024-05-22 11 daysheat dome · 6/11 d · Z500 +205 m
peak 147k km² on 2024-05-14 · max +10.5 °C · mean +7.3 °C · burden 716k km²·d · drift 485 km (52.4 N 6.6 E → 56.4 N 9.4 E)
Event #6 — 2024-05-14 → 2024-05-19 6 daysheat dome · 6/6 d · Z500 +238 m
peak 131k km² on 2024-05-17 · max +13.0 °C · mean +9.2 °C · burden 558k km²·d · drift 133 km (62.1 N 23.8 E → 62.5 N 26.2 E)
Event #9 — 2024-06-04 → 2024-06-08 5 dayshigh on 1/5 d only
peak 178k km² on 2024-06-07 · max +11.2 °C · mean +7.3 °C · burden 533k km²·d · drift 430 km (41.3 N -5.5 E → 42.0 N -0.4 E)
Event #7 — 2024-05-28 → 2024-06-01 5 dayshigh on 2/5 d only
peak 170k km² on 2024-05-30 · max +10.7 °C · mean +8.1 °C · burden 527k km²·d · drift 241 km (38.9 N -5.1 E → 39.4 N -7.8 E)
Event #17 — 2024-07-28 → 2024-08-03 7 dayshigh on 1/7 d only
peak 121k km² on 2024-08-01 · max +8.2 °C · mean +5.5 °C · burden 449k km²·d · drift 480 km (36.0 N 2.1 E → 35.0 N 7.3 E)
Event #16 — 2024-07-17 → 2024-07-20 4 daysno overlying high
peak 134k km² on 2024-07-19 · max +10.5 °C · mean +6.3 °C · burden 367k km²·d · drift 411 km (42.5 N -2.9 E → 43.0 N 2.1 E)
Event #20 — 2024-08-23 → 2024-08-27 5 daysheat dome · 4/5 d · Z500 +235 m
peak 108k km² on 2024-08-26 · max +10.1 °C · mean +7.2 °C · burden 327k km²·d · drift 235 km (64.8 N 44.8 E → 63.0 N 42.3 E)
Event #10 — 2024-06-10 → 2024-06-13 4 dayshigh on 1/4 d only
peak 102k km² on 2024-06-11 · max +10.5 °C · mean +8.4 °C · burden 314k km²·d · drift 392 km (51.8 N 44.0 E → 55.3 N 44.1 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.