Summer is heating up – stay cool, Missoula!
Last summer, our Stay Cool team organized and executed Heat Watch – a countywide heat mapping project – to understand heat distribution across Missoula County. Heat Watch data was collected on August 12th, 2025, and was coordinated by our Stay Cool Missoula team and partners from the Center for Collaborative Heat Monitoring, CAPA Strategies, and the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry.
Susan Teitelman provides an update on the Stay Cool Missoula initiative and the results of the Heat Watch 2025 campaign. Congratulations to our Missoula partners on all their hard work to stay cool as temperatures rise.
Missoula, MT Heat Watch Report and data is now live!
The Heat Watch Summary Report for Missoula, MT is now available on Open Science Framework and at Climate Ready Missoula. We are grateful to our CCHM partners CAPA Strategies for their time and expertise in preparing this report.
Life-saving research on extreme heat comes under fire
Missoula, Mont. is not known for sweltering temperatures. And yet heat waves are becoming more common in the mountainous region due to climate change, and researchers are concerned that a catastrophic heat event could soon shock the 120,000 or so people who call Missoula County home. Recent history reveals the cost of being unprepared for extreme heat; in 2021, the Pacific Northwest was caught off guard by the strongest heat wave the region had seen in a thousand years, resulting in more than 1,400 deaths. “We’ve come to understand that heat is a major threat to our region,” says Alli Kane, the Climate Action Program Coordinator for Missoula County. “And it’s something that we’re not prepared for.”