Extreme heat on Independence Day will be America's new normal, experts say
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Still, the planet will continue to get hotter, he said. "We're learning how to adapt to it. But there's a limit to how much we can adapt," Cohen said.

Both experts said people are also taking warnings more seriously. A 2025 poll from the University of Chicago found that "about 9 in 10 Americans who experienced extreme weather believe climate change is a contributing factor."

"There's more awareness of the health impacts of extreme weather," Cohen said. "People are paying attention to it because it's no longer something that happened to somebody else. It's something that happened to my cousin, my brother, my friend or myself."

In the future, Rawlins said this Fourth of July and other extreme weather events cannot be looked at in isolation. From June 1 through July 5, temperatures at weather stations across New England recorded their highest temperatures on record or just below their highest, he said.

"That's not a heat wave — that's a season," Rawlins said.

© NPR

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