Nevada just shattered its March statewide high temperature record by 6 degrees, which is a ‘72 miles per hour in a school zone’ kind of margin. And it happened during the hottest 11-year stretch in 176 years of recorded temperature tracking.

A mid-March heat wave in the American West pushed temperatures in Laughlin, Nevada, to 106°F, far above the previous March record of 100°F. The fact that this happened in March is alarming, especially since it coincided with a near-total collapse of the region’s snowpack. This sets the stage for an early and possibly severe wildfire season. The heat also fits a troubling trend confirmed by the World Meteorological Organization last week: 2015 through 2025 have been the 11 warmest years ever recorded on Earth.

Usually, temperature records are broken by small amounts. What happened in Nevada last month was very different. Some places broke monthly high temperature records by as much as 8 degrees. Reno had seven days above 80°F in March, compared to the previous record of just two days. “It’s not just that we broke monthly records,” said Nevada State Climatologist Baker Perry, “but it’s by how much we broke the monthly records, and not just in one place.”

A Snow Drought That Wasn’t in the Forecast

The heat wave didn’t hit a typical winter landscape. Nevada was already experiencing what Perry calls an unprecedented snow drought. Even though winter precipitation was close to normal and there were big storms in mid-February, warm, moist air arrived soon after. This caused what the National Weather Service called the second-highest single-day snowmelt ever recorded in the eastern Sierra, only surpassed by flooding in 1997.

Normally, snow melts slowly through April and May, but this year it happened all at once in late February and early March. SNOTEL monitoring stations across Nevada show the impact clearly: 70% of sites in northern and central Nevada now report zero inches of snowpack. That’s not just low—it’s gone. The incidence of drought is closely correlated with rising atmospheric CO2 levels recorded at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, which is threatened with defunding by the Trump Administration.

What worries scientists most is the combination of these events. “To have these two unprecedented, exceptional events happening at once is a combination that is particularly concerning,” Perry said.

What This Means for Fire Season

Wildfire risk isn’t only about heat. It depends on the sequence of conditions leading up to fire season, and this year’s setup is especially dangerous.

The snowmelt and early rains caused plants to grow weeks ahead of schedule. This early growth creates lots of fine fuels. As these plants dry out over the spring—now with less moisture from snowpack—they become the kindling that can fuel fast-moving fires.

Truckee Meadows Fire Protection District Division Chief August Isernhagen said the early green-up could lead to conditions we haven’t seen before as fire season approaches. He urged people to be even more careful than in recent drought years.

“The majority of our starts, and nearly all of our catastrophic fires are human caused,” Isernhagen said in a statement from the University of Nevada, Reno.

Mountain forests face another challenge. Dawn Johnson, Warning Coordination Meteorologist at the NWS in Reno, explained that losing snowpack this early means heavy timber can become drought-stressed much sooner than usual, turning it into a fire hazard months earlier than normal. A cooler storm pattern expected in early April might bring some relief, but experts warn it may be too little, too late to make a real difference.

Eleven Years. No Exceptions.

The Nevada heat wave wasn’t an isolated event. It happened during the longest stretch of global heat ever recorded.

The WMO’s State of the Global Climate 2025 report, released on March 23, confirmed that every year from 2015 to 2025 is among the hottest ever recorded. Depending on the data, 2025 was either the second- or third-warmest year since records began, with temperatures about 1.43°C above pre-industrial levels. Atmospheric CO₂ reached its highest level in 2 million years, and ocean temperatures set a new record for the ninth year in a row.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres put the streak in stark terms: “When history repeats itself eleven times, it is no longer a coincidence. It is a call to act.”

The report also introduced a new measure called Earth’s energy imbalance (EEI). This tracks the difference between the energy the planet receives from the sun and the energy it sends back into space. In 2025, EEI was at its highest since records began in 1960. Surface temperatures, which get most of the attention, only show about 1% of the planet’s extra heat. Over 91% is absorbed by the oceans, which have taken in the equivalent of about 18 times the world’s total annual energy use each year for the past 20 years. EEI gives a clearer picture, showing that the planet is becoming more out of balance.

“In 2025, heatwaves, wildfires, drought, tropical cyclones, storms and flooding caused thousands of deaths, impacted millions of people and caused billions in economic losses,” said WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo. She added that the changes driven by human activities “will have harmful repercussions for hundreds — and potentially thousands — of years.”

What’s happening in the Western U.S. matches the WMO’s global findings perfectly. The report highlighted major glacier loss in 2025 along North America’s Pacific coast. These events aren’t separate—they’re both signs of the same warming trend, just showing up in different ways and times.

“We seem to be entering this new era where temperatures will be significantly higher than what they were ten years ago,” said climate scientist Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick of Australian National University. She explained that the changes of the past three years can only be explained by climate change.

What About the Cold in the East?

This is where things get both surprising and important.

If you live in the Northeast, Midwest, or Southeast, 2025 might not seem like a record-warm year. Some parts of the eastern U.S. have had cold snaps and severe winter weather that made national news. So how does that fit with 11 straight years of record global heat?

This actually makes sense in climate science. Climate change doesn’t warm every place at the same time. Instead, it disrupts atmospheric patterns like the polar vortex, which usually keeps cold air over the Arctic. As the Arctic warms much faster than the rest of the planet—about four times the global average, according to NOAA—the polar vortex weakens and shifts, letting cold air move into areas that don’t usually get it.

In other words, the same forces causing record heat in Nevada are also behind the unusual cold in the eastern U.S. These aren’t opposites—they’re both results of a destabilized climate system. Weather feels local, but our climate is shared. When the West is hot in March and the East is cold, both are signs of the same disrupted system.

What You Can Do

• If you live in the West, check current wildfire risk conditions through the National Interagency Fire Center and understand your local evacuation routes and readiness steps before fire season peaks.
• Lower the risk of starting fires. Most wildfires are caused by people, so be extra careful during high-risk times. Don’t have campfires during bans, avoid dragging chains on your vehicle or trailer, and make sure your equipment doesn’t create sparks.
• Support climate policy at both the state and federal levels. Reach out to your Congressional representatives. The WMO data shows the trend is clear. The decisions we make now will shape how severe fire seasons are in the future.
• Cut your home’s carbon footprint by using energy efficiently, choosing cleaner transportation, and making changes to your diet. One person’s actions won’t solve the global problem, but when many people make changes, it can have a real impact on emissions.
• If you live in the eastern U.S., don’t let cold winters make you ignore climate data. Pay attention to what’s happening across the country—the same atmosphere connects us all.

Related Reading on Earth911

How to Prepare Your Home for Wildfire Season

The post The West Is Burning Before Summer Even Starts, and It’s No Accident appeared first on Earth911.

The era of grunge, fanny packs, and boy bands, the ‘90s, has left its mark on pop and counterculture in many ways. Some of the movies that came out in the 1990s are among the most iconic, and watching them is like getting a concentrated dose of nostalgia. From Oscar-winning kids' films to off-the-wall military-themed comedies, Prime Video has some buried treasures from this iconic decade.

A thriller earns that 10/10 feeling when the first scene already knows what kind of pressure the movie is going to put on you. The story can be loud, quiet, violent, psychological, procedural, or strange. What matters is control. A great thriller keeps your attention without begging for it.

Summer in Japan can be brutally hot, but thankfully, Thanko is here to help.

We’ve still got some time until the full force of the summer heat hits, but with the weather in Japan expected to get so hot that the government had to start deciding on new words to officially describe it, it’s already time to start thinking about countermeasures. And sure, those Studio Ghibli uchiwa paper fans are beautiful, but for those looking for heavier-duty heat relief, Japanese gadget maker Thanko has, as it so often does, an unusual offering ready for the task.

Thanko calls it the Cold Wind USB Spot Ice Fan, and it’s meant to provide you with a more effective blast of cold air than you’d get with a regular electric fan, but without the side-effect waste heat, costly installation, or high running costs of a conventional air conditioning unit.

The unit draws in air from near its base, sucks it up, and then blows it out the tube at the top. In between, it passes through an ice pack, cooling the air and then compressing it into the exit hose, so that it blows out with extra force, focusing the breeze exactly where you want it to, most likely directly on yourself.

The reusable ice pack comes pre-filled with a powdered freezing agent. Add water and freeze it, and it’ll last you for four hours of fan use.

It’s extremely rare for homes and apartments in Japan to have centralized heating/air conditioning systems, and instead you have to install a separate unit for each and every room you want coverage in. This often means that hallways, bathrooms, and spaces towards the center of the home end up with no air conditioning, and the Cold Wind USB Spot Ice Fan looks like a handy way to cool off those places where putting in a full AC unit would be impractical and/or expensive.

As for the USB part of the name, the device gets its power though a USB C port, and can be used either plugged into an AC adaptor or a mobile battery. The fan has three speed settings (high, medium, and low), and Thanko says that even though its efficient design means it uses only about one-fifth the electricity of a normal electric fan, it’ll still have you feeling three degrees Celsius (5.4 degree Fahrenheit) cooler.

The Cold Wind USB Spot Ice Fan is available through Thanko’s online store here, where it’s priced at 7,980 yen (US$51). And if you’re wondering if Thanko has weird and wonderful ways to keep you warm in the winter too, they sure do.

Source, images: PR Times
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If there's one director working right now who simply doesn't get the credit they deserve for having essentially forged a career akin to that of Steven Soderbergh, it's David Mackenzie. He simply cannot be put in a box, having made movies that belong to genres as diverse as epic historical (Outlaw King) and prison drama (Starred Up). His most popular movie, however, remains the Taylor Sheridan-penned neo-Western Hell or High Water, starring Chris Pine, Ben Foster, Jeff Bridges, and Gil Birmingham. The movie holds a near-perfect 97% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, which, in any other circumstances, would have set up Mackenzie for life. However, he didn't jump to major franchise filmmaking or prestige television following Hell or High Water's admirable success. He continued down his chosen path of making genre movies. And now, his latest film is emerging as a sudden hit on the PVOD market.

Alan Mays posted a photo:

The man with the fan knows that despite the heat, it'll be alright.

There's no indication where or when this snapshot was taken.

A Vintage Photos Theme Park photo of an electric fan for the theme of electric fans or sports fans (if you have both kinds of fans, please feel free to post 2 photos).

Thrillers from the ‘90s just hit differently. For some reason, films from that era had a way of crawling under the audience’s skin without needing to rely on hollow twists every 10 minutes or turning everything into franchise bait. They felt darker, stranger, and far more willing to leave the audience with a sense of discomfort.

Erotic movies are rewatchable with an obvious intensity — you come back for heat. But that’s not all. Eroticism is the hook but you also come back for tension that lives in glances, in pauses, in how a body enters a room already changing the moral atmosphere. All great erotic films understand that desire is never just pleasure. It is embarrassment, fantasy, performance, class hunger, control, self-invention, memory, danger, resentment, projection, boredom, grief. The sex matters because it is carrying all that other human material inside it.

Intense summer heat means new safety rules and ice-cold drinks.

Summer in Japan is popular for many things, from festivals and fireworks to delicious and refreshing treats, but there is also another undeniable aspect to the season: it gets pretty hot. In fact, in recent times with consistently high temperatures, the Japan Meteorological Agency officially introduced a new term to refer to days that reach over 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit), meaning that working outside this summer is not likely to be an easy feat. So, Japan Post has announced an update on how they will be looking to keep their hard-working staff safe as they strive to deliver mail in a timely manner.

The Ministry of the Environment utilizes a heat index called WBGT (Wet Bulb Globe Temperature) to issue safety warnings, which will be referenced by Japan Post’s new policy to determine their course of action. Under this policy, if a “Heatstroke Special Alert” is issued (when the index is predicted to hit 35 degrees Celsius [95 degrees Fahrenheit]), all outdoor deliveries and collections by foot, bicycle, motorcycle, and pushcart will be temporarily suspended to protect workers. Additionally, on standard “Heatstroke Alert” days (with the index at 33 or above) or when the temperatures soar past 40 degrees Celsius, local postmasters can shift the delivery windows to completely avoid the hottest afternoon hours.

For the general public, this doesn’t have a significant impact, with general mail being a little slower to arrive. However, if you’ve selected a specific time slot for a package delivery on an intensely hot day, particularly around midday, there is a possibility that it might arrive later than scheduled on the same day or on a later date.

▼ Just show a little patience, instead of reaching for your phone to complain.

To make these gruelling outdoor shifts more comfortable, Japan Post is also allowing some extra gear to be worn, so you might see your local mail carriers rocking some cool sunglasses, neck coolers or fan-equipped vests.

Mail carriers are now officially encouraged to take quick hydration stops at convenience stores during their route, so don’t be surprised if you see a postal worker stopping in for a brief breather and grabbing a refreshing beverage.

This summer, if your mail happens to take a slightly more relaxed route on a blazing afternoon, don’t get too worked up. Sit back, crank up the air conditioning, and enjoy a cold drink, because your delivery is still safely on its way, being carried by a team that is also looking to stay cool and hydrated.

Source: Impress Watch via Yahoo Japan via Hachima Kikou
Top image: Pakutaso
Insert image: Pakutaso
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Stay salty, everybody.

Shibuya is one of Tokyo’s most exciting neighborhoods. Between world-famous tourism landmarks like the statue of faithful dog Hachiko and the scramble intersection, plus shopping options from iconic stores like fashion mecca 109 and Nintendo Tokyo, there’s a lot to see and do in this part of downtown, and if you’re visiting this summer you might want to stop by the Shibuya Ward Office too and grab a little something to eat.

No, this isn’t another semi-secret ward office cafeteria we’re talking about. Instead, the Shibuya Ward Office is giving out free sodium tablets as of June 1.

Shibuya Ward’s goal isn’t to promote snacking, though. The complimentary salt tablets are part of Good Sweat Shibuya Action, a multi-faceted public awareness campaign aimed at dealing with the high heat and humidity that come with summer in Japan. While it might not be as much of an issue in countries with higher salt intakes in their daily diets, in Japan profuse sweating leading to dangerously low levels of sodium in the body is a legitimate concern for many people, with supplements for replenishing sodium and other vital minerals lost during perspiration, such as Kabaya Foods Corporation’s Enbun Charge Tablets being sold in pharmacies and convenience stores.

However, not everyone carries a supply of tablets on them, and as the effects of heat stroke can sneak up on people, Enbun Charge Tablets are now being offered free of charge at the Shibuya Ward Office. Anyone who wants one can simply grab a tablet from the box located in the second-floor atrium of the building.

▼ The Shibuya Ward Office is just one black away from the Shibuya Parco shopping center, which houses the Nintendo Tokyo and Shibuya Pokémon Center stores.

▼ A banner announcing the free Enbun Charge (塩分チャージ)

Boxes of free sodium tablets will also be placed at 29 other locations in Shibuya Ward, primarily libraries, public gyms/sports facilities, medical centers, and government offices, tying into the ward’s initiative to promote “cool sharing spots,” climate-controlled common-use areas where a large number of people can cool off in a more aggregately energy-efficient manner than simultaneously running their own home air conditioning units.

As the tablets are individually wrapped, there’s no need to use them right away, so swinging by the ward office and grabbing one to keep on hand for later in the day is an option too.

Source: Shibuya Keizai Shimbun, PR Times
Images: PR Times
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The Criterion Collection is known for taking the greatest films from around the world and restoring them to their greatest quality. Thus, cinematic works are preserved for future generations — and enjoyed by those who can afford to splurge on a physical box set. While there are plenty of excellent works that have already received the Criterion treatment over the years, there are several action movies that we'd love to see highlighted by the platform.