John Ryan

While the world’s oceans have been hitting record temperatures in 2023, Northwest coastal waters have, until recent weeks, remained cooler than their long-term average. Now the Pacific Northwest has joined the rest of the world in having exceptional ocean heat.

Intrepid KUOW reporter John Ryan takes a road trip through Washington, Oregon and Idaho in a rented Chevy Bolt to see how feasible it is to venture outside the Northwest's cities with an all-electric vehicle.

Temperatures in the world's oceans surged to new levels in April, nearing an average of 70 degrees Fahrenheit for the first time on record, according to the University of Maine’s Climate Change Institute.

As a string of attacks on electrical substations unfolded in Oregon and Washington in 2022, the FBI was warning utilities of white supremacists’ plots to take down the nation’s power grid. An investigation by OPB and Washington public media station KUOW reveals the scope of the threat to the Northwest grid.

Record-breaking heat took a heavy toll on the Northwest this summer, from beaches to cities to mountaintops. In the Washington Cascades, some glaciers lost an unprecedented 8% to 10% of their ice in a single hot season.