Temperature to Spike Well Above 100 Degrees in the West, Threat to Economy

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 11, 7:08PM EST · Published Aug 20, 6:20AM EDT

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Temperature to Spike Well Above 100 Degrees in the West, Threat to Economy — © https://www.flickr.com/photos/daquellamanera/

A wave of 100 degrees plus weather across much of the United States is not over. And the effects on the economy are likely to worsen each day.

Forecasts for Phoenix, Las Vegas and the areas around are for the mercury to reach near 110 degrees, which is as hot as in some of the world’s hottest cities, including in Dubai and Bagdad. Businesses that might thrive in cooler weather will either close or see a reduction in activity.

Among the sectors immediately hurt are agriculture and retail. Some crops cannot flourish in the beating sun. Neither can retailers, from restaurants to car dealers. When the mercury tops 115 degrees, some commercial planes cannot fly.

The most dangerous byproduct of very high temperatures is that they often come with wind and dryness. Massive wildfires in the west have been made worse by sweltering days without rain, accompanied by high winds.

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Another byproduct of extremely hot weather is that people simply stay home. Maybe some shop online, but they are not walking through huge parking lots where the blacktop can make temperatures even worse.

At some point, economists will make an estimate of what excessively hot and dry weather has done to gross domestic product. It won’t be good news.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.