WHAT IS WICKED HOT MYSTIC?

Surprisingly, extreme heat, sometimes known as the “silent storm of extreme weather” causes more deaths in the US than all other weather hazards combined (source). Some neighborhoods and entire municipalities in the greater Boston area are hotter than others because of the Urban Heat Island effect. Due to the legacy of historical racist policies, such as redlining, these neighborhoods are overwhelmingly low income communities of color and disproportionately suffer from extreme heat and poor air quality.

To help communities identify and prioritize dangerously hot neighborhoods, the Museum of Science, Boston (MOS), Mystic River Watershed Association (MyRWA), Resilient Mystic Collaborative (RMC), and the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC) worked with volunteers to measure air temperatures, humidity, and particulate matter across the 76-square-mile Mystic River Watershed. ‘Wicked Hot Mystic’ used the data collected to create watershed-wide relative heat maps, which will help locate areas most in need of life-saving extreme heat resilience strategies.

Check out this webinar to learn about "hotspots" we identified in the Mystic and what we have planned next for the Wicked Hot Mystic data.

For more on Wicked Hot Mystic, visit https://www.mos.org/explore/public-ev...