The Hottest 4th Of July Ever Could Set More Than 300 New Records And The U.S. Wheat Harvest Is Expected To Be The Smallest In 150 Years

The Hottest 4th Of July Ever Could Set More Than 300 New Records And The U.S. Wheat Harvest Is Expected To Be The Smallest In 150 Years

Michael Snyder

It is supposed to be hot on the 4th of July, but it isn’t supposed to be this hot. Temperatures will be 20 to 30 degrees above average in much of the eastern half of the country. I warned a few days ago that we were going to experience a “4th of July furnace”, and meteorologists are telling us that hundreds of new records could be established. Unfortunately, this entire summer is going to be extremely hot. The “Godzilla El Niño” that has now begun is going to mean the we will experience unusually hot weather, epic storms and severe droughts in key agricultural areas throughout the second half of this year. And that is really bad news, because it is being projected that the amount of wheat produced in the U.S. this year will be the lowest since 1877.

An absolutely gigantic heat dome is going to relentlessly bake half of the nation over the next few days, and CBS News is reporting that “more than 300 records are expected to be set by Saturday”…

This July Fourth could be the hottest on record for millions of Americans as a massive heat wave traps more than half of the United States under a heat dome through the holiday weekend.

Dangerously high temperatures continued to ramp up Thursday from the Midwest to the East Coast, forecasters said. Between daily high temperatures and warm overnight lows — which won’t be low enough to offer much relief — more than 300 records are expected to be set by Saturday.

The latest National Weather Service forecast says that in some areas high temperatures will go as high as 105 degrees and the heat index will go as high as 115 degrees…

Washington D.C., Philadelphia, New York City and Boston are all expected to hit triple digits…

Washington, D.C., is expected to experience its hottest Fourth of July on record, with temperatures reaching 101 degrees. From Thursday through Saturday, the city is forecast to endure its hottest three-day stretch of the year. Philadelphia could reach 104 degrees on Friday, while New York and Boston are also expected to hit 100 degrees.

According to the Washington Post, Washington D.C. will be among “the top 1.1 percent of the planet’s hottest places on Friday”…

What does D.C. have in common with desolate stretches of Africa’s Sahara, deserts in the Middle East and China’s Gobi Desert? It has lots of hot air, of course.

So much hot air, in fact, that D.C. will find itself in the top 1.1 percent of the planet’s hottest places on Friday, when high temperatures will soar toward 105 degrees.

For the first time, New York City is deploying vans staffed with nurses and paramedics who will hand out water, electrolytes and sunscreen, CBS News New York reported. They will also perform wellness checks, transport people to cooling centers and make in-home visits to vulnerable residents. The city is also opening cooling centers throughout the five boroughs.

With 160 million people in 30 states under alert for extreme temperatures, the U.S. Department of Energy has declared an emergency as a heat wave bears down on a huge part of the nation’s electrical grid.

U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright issued an Energy Emergency Alert, directing officials of the biggest electrical grid, PJM Interconnections in the Mid-Atlantic region, to take action to prevent blackouts and ensure essential operations like hospitals are fully functioning during the heat wave.

“Maintaining affordable, reliable, and secure power in the PJM service territory is non-negotiable,” Wright said in a statement on Tuesday.

When the 4th of July weekend is finally over, the focus will shift to the western half of the nation.

A new heat dome is coming, and it will afflict areas that are already being ravaged by drought and wildfires…

A new heat dome will build between the Rockies and the Pacific coast.

As the jet stream bulges northward in the West, an area of high pressure will build over the region. The setup will allow temperatures to trend upward initially from several degrees Fahrenheit next week to 10-20 degrees above the 30-year average by the middle of July.

The heat dome will bring the highest temperatures of the season so far — even eclipsing the extreme marks set during the spring heat waves in Phoenix, Las Vegas and Palm Springs, California.

Meanwhile, the heat is also having a huge impact on America’s farmers.

Earlier today, I was astounded to learn that the amount of wheat that will be harvested in the United States this year is expected to be the lowest since 1877…

America is expected to harvest its lowest acreage of wheat since 1877, due to drought, scorched crops, high input costs and uncertainty in export markets.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) National Agricultural Statistics Service released estimates on June 30 that the total area of all wheat planted was 42.7 million acres in 2026, down six percent from the previous year. This was also 1 million acres below the agency’s March forecasts. 

In 1877, there were 40 million people living in the United States.

Today, there are 342 million people living in the United States.

We are supposed to be one of the breadbaskets of the world, but the past 12 months have been extremely warm and exceedingly dry…

Droughts are known to significantly reduce crop yields as the heat and lack of water can damage crops and stunt their growth.

Romulo Lollato, a wheat specialist at Kansas State University, told news outlet High Plains Journal that a lot of the wheat in Kansas—one of the state’s largest wheat producers, alongside Oklahoma and Texas—was “very short,” which he said was a “sign of drought stress.”

Now a “Super El Niño” is here, and the outlook for the months ahead is not promising at all.

A “perfect storm” is now upon us, and it is only going to intensify throughout the remainder of this year and beyond.