What a 5,000-mile-long Marine Heat Wave Means for Summer in the U.S.

A massive ocean hot spot is stretching across a 5,000-mile swath of the Pacific — from Micronesia to the coastal waters of California. Across this zone, waters' temperatures are as much as 6 to 8 degrees higher than average.

This has garnered the attention of climate scientists, who say it could boost temperatures, humidity and the threat for tropical storms in the West during the months ahead. Climate scientist Daniel Swain described this increasingly extreme marine heat wave as an "exceptional event" that is breaking records.

The unusual ocean anomaly — the largest on the planet — could expand and intensify to cover the entire Pacific coast of North America by late summer, he wrote.

Please select this link to read the complete article from The Washington Post.