California launches new weather tracking system to rank the severity of extreme heat

Heat continues to be the leading cause of weather-related deaths in the United States, and it won't be long before the scorching heat returns to Southern California.

The state has launched a tool to help Californians better prepare for dangerous heat.

We're used to seeing numerical rankings when it comes to the severity of other weather events like hurricanes or tornadoes, but now, there is a new scoring system for extreme heat. It was created by the state of California to help people be more prepared for hot weather.

It's called the California Communities Extreme Heat Scoring System (CalHeatScore), and it's considered a public health tool that ranks your community's heat conditions every day on a scale from zero to four. The higher the number, the higher the risk.

But, what's the difference compared to heat alerts issued by the National Weather Service (NWS)?

CalHeatScore is meant to be a system easy for the user to understand with a hyperlocal approach, giving you heat risks down to every zip code based on historical climate conditions and the historical data of emergency room visits.

"CalHeatScore is based on fundamentally increasing visits in emergency department visits based on past heat conditions, and what we're trying to do is warn people that if temperatures are at a certain level in a community, you can take notice and you need to take action so that you can stay safe," said Walker Wieland, the program manager of CalHeatScore.

In an effort to protect California's most vulnerable communities, CalHeatScore also maps out nearby cooling centers and other accessible resources to better plan for extreme heat.

You can access CalHeatScore through their website, plus they're working on an app to give people access to real-time notifications on their cellphones.

Eyewitness News asked if the new system had anything to do with cuts made at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the state said no.

The California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment said the vision came from a bill passed in 2022 in an approach by the governor's office to bring more awareness to dangerous heat due to the number of heat-related illnesses, deaths, and costs.