Record Shattering Heat Takes A Toll On The West With Water, Power Resources Stretched Thin

Summer doesn't officially arrive for another five days, but the western U.S. is hot.

So hot that the heat advisory listings on the Weather.gov website read like a telephone directory: Lake County, California, up to 109 degrees through Saturday; Grand Junction, Colorado, up to 109 degrees; San Francisco Bay area, up to 102; Phoenix, Arizona, could hit 118 after two days at 115.

The heat is threatening fragile power grids, exacerbating the crisis-level drought, and threatening people, farmland and wildlife.

Host Robin Young checks in with Axios weather and climate reporter Andrew Freedman for the latest.