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In recent years, more homes have added air-conditioning, something that may come in handy this week as some areas are expected to see temperatures 40 degrees above normal.
March 22, 2026
San Francisco hit 90 degrees on Friday, the first day of spring. It was even warmer in Livermore and Redwood City, San Rafael and Santa Rosa.
As these kind of spikes have become more common, there has been a rush to add air conditioning in the region. More than half of the San Francisco area’s homes now have air-conditioning, a first for the famously cool region, which federal estimates show passed that milestone just a few years ago.
It is not just the Bay Area: The United States has become a lot more air-conditioned in recent years, both fueling climate change and taming its day-to-day consequences. About 93 percent of occupied American housing units had primary air-conditioning in 2023, according to the most recently published federal data. Eight years earlier, about 89 percent did.
Those air-conditioners will face fresh tests this week as the heat wave that had enormous swaths of the United States sweating last week threatens more unpleasantness.
Parts of Utah could reach into the 90s, and it might be only a few degrees cooler in Denver. Oklahoma City is bracing for a day of mid-90s, and St. Louis will not be far behind. The National Weather Service is warning that, thanks to “an anomalous ridge,” midweek could have some parts of the country confronting temperatures that are 30 to 40 degrees above average for this time of year.
“It doesn’t take too many heat waves before you see a lot of air-conditioning, even in places like the Pacific Northwest,” said Lucas W. Davis, a business professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who has studied the spread of air-conditioning.
