Currently in Boston — August 16, 2023: Lots of clouds

The weather, currently.

After showers Tuesday we'll have cloudy skies for the overnight with some patchy fog. Temperatures down in the '60s. It will be muggy. Wednesday also looks muggy with a lot of clouds and highs in the lower 70s. The clouds continue to dominate on Thursday although I do expect some sunshine. Temperatures will be in the upper 70s. More showers and thunderstorms are possible Friday with temperatures in the lower '80s along with high humidity. The weekend is looking fantastic with plenty of sunshine lower humidity and temperatures mainly in the lower '80s Saturday and mid-to upper 80s by Sunday.

— Dave Epstein

What you need to know, currently.

So far, 2023 has been a year of climate extremes — especially heat.

Global oceans are record-warm, especially those near Florida. All-time records temperatures have been broken in China. We’ve experienced the hottest day on Earth in 125,000 years.

NOAA, NASA, and other global monitoring organizations have crunched the numbers for July and found that we’re now on track for this to be the hottest year in history.

"We now estimate a 99% likelihood that 2023 will set a new record for the warmest annual average," wrote Robert Rohde of Berkeley Earth. That’s a huge boost from their estimate back in January, before El Niño formed, of just a 14% chance of a record warm year.

There’s also now a 20% chance we reach 1.5°C this year — the line-in-the-sand limit agreed to by the world in 2015 in Paris — the point above which widespread climate change could become irreversible on civilization timescales. Though these changes, especially in coral reefs and other critical ecological systems, are already beginning to occur.

Due to a strengthening El Niño, 2024 will be warmer than 2023. Earlier this year, the World Meteorological Organization gave a 66% chance that the world will hit the 1.5°C mark by 2027.

—Eric Holthaus

What you can do, currently.

The fires in Maui have struck at the heart of Hawaiian heritage, and if you’d like to support survivors, here are good places to start:

The fires burned through the capital town of the Kingdom of Hawaii, the ancestral and present home to native Hawaiians on their original unceded lands. One of the buildings destroyed was the Na ‘Aikane o Maui cultural center, a gathering place for the Hawaiian community to organize and celebrate.

If you’d like to help the community rebuild and restore the cultural center, a fund has been established that is accepting donations — specify “donation for Na ‘Aikane” on this Venmo link.