City news
These Dallas neighborhoods are risky hot spots during extreme weather
Texas heat is no joke.
A new urban heat study shows that some neighborhoods in Dallas can get significantly hotter than others. Those key areas, called heat islands, can put residents at risk during extreme weather events — like, say, most Texas summers.
Preliminary results from the heat study, published April 1, come several months after Dallas joined a coalition of cities seeking ways to combat the effects of climate change. In summer 2023, the city of Dallas and 18 other communities joined the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in an urban heat island mapping campaign, meant to collect data to map where people are most at risk during extreme heat events.
Based on the data collected, the hottest areas in Dallas include Love Field, the Medical District, Uptown, Downtown, Oak Lawn, Deep Ellum, the Design District, West Dallas, Bishop Arts, and the Stemmons/Market Center area, according to a release. Three of those neighborhoods earned the top spots, meaning they’re most at risk during extreme heat:
- Bishop Arts
- Medical District
- West Dallas
Urban areas with few trees and lots of pavement, which absorbs heat, are considered heat islands and can get up to 20 degrees hotter than areas with high volumes of trees and grass. Typically, "historically disadvantaged" neighborhoods (read: low-income, minority-majority) have less green spaces, which leads to higher temperatures. The residents of those neighborhoods can then often be at greater risk of heat-related health concerns.
As part of the heat mapping campaign, about 70 volunteers recorded temperature and humidity data from a 103.3-square-mile area of the city on Aug. 5, 2023. Using sensors mounted on cars, they recorded temperatures in the morning, afternoon, and evening to collect data at different times throughout the day.
They found that temperatures in Dallas could vary by up to 10 degrees depending on the neighborhood. That could spell bad news, as extreme heat has been the No.1 weather-related cause of death in the U.S. for the last 30 years.
The point of the heat island mapping, according to the release, is to “develop high resolution maps of air temperature and heat index, and ultimately better understand and address the risks from extreme heat.”
Dallas’ Office of Environmental Quality and Sustainability is expected to map the remainder of the city for heat islands in the summer of 2024.
