Welcome to the U.S. Urban Heat Island Mapping Campaigns Storymap. For the last 4 years, a national public-private partnership has collaborated with local city government leaders and partnering organizations to map their cities’ hottest places on the hottest days of summer.

After much collaboration and coordination, local organizers and volunteers collected thousands of temperature and humidity data points in the morning, afternoon, and evening of several long, hot campaign days in the summer across multiple cities. Thanks to these efforts, analysts at CAPA Strategies were able to combine the data with satellite imagery to produce the urban heat maps being shared with you here. We are excited to present these data to you and your communities, and we look forward to learning about your interpretations and implications of these patterns in the region.

The purpose and aims of conducting this Heat Watch campaign are fourfold:

Recognize that communities face an unprecedented challenge of locally preparing for a dysfunctional global climate system. Needed are approaches that center communities and infrastructure that face the greatest threat from increasing intensity, duration, and frequency of climate-induced extreme weather events.
Understand the distributional effects of temperature and humidity (heat index) provide an immediate and compelling opportunity to engage communities.
Bridge the innovations in sensor technology and spatial analytics with community engagement efforts.
Engage communities in advancing local actions that can safeguard communities and infrastructure for an uncertain future.

What data are we making available?

Below you can access the datasets for the cities from the 2017, 2018 and 2019 campaigns as map services - dynamic, interactive, intelligent maps.

Predicted afternoon (3PM), morning (6AM), and evening (7PM) ambient temperatures or heat indexes where available. The data retrieved from sensors was analyzed using a machine-learning algorithm that also incorporates local data and satellite imagery. The resulting maps show heat distribution for the entire city.
Traverses that were conducted by volunteer community citizens by mounting sensor equipment on the car and driving the designated routes at 7 a.m., 3 p.m., and 7 p.m. on a hot, clear day. These sensors tracked GPS location, temperature, and humidity at one-second intervals throughout each one-hour traverse. After completion, sensors were shipped back to the CAPA team for analysis.