What are the hottest local neighborhoods? Raleigh, Durham residents can help find out

Scientists and community volunteers will fan out across Raleigh and Durham this summer, using heat sensors mounted on their cars or bikes to record temperature, humidity and location every second as they travel through neighborhoods in the morning, afternoon and evening on one of the hottest days of the year. The data will then be used to make a high-resolution temperature map that reveals certain hot spots.

State Climatologist Kathie Dello said temperatures can be 10 to 15 degrees hotter in these "heat islands."

“Our cities are built out of cement and concrete, and if you think about wearing a black T-shirt on a hot day, you’re a lot hotter than when you wear a white T-shirt," Dello said. "Essentially, we have a bunch of black T-shirts all over our city, and out in the parks and rural areas, it’s more of the white T-shirt."

Max Cawley, one of the leaders of the mapping campaign and a program manager at The Museum of Life and Science in Durham, said some communities are more vulnerable than others.

"Communities that have green space or have tree canopy are less vulnerable. We have an understanding now that the communities we believe we’ll find are less vulnerable are the ones that have been invested in, which are higher-income communities and largely white communities," Cawley said. "The opposite is true for more vulnerable communities. ... It’s going to be lower-income communities and communities of color."

Like many cities, Raleigh and Durham were redlined for decades, restricting where people of color could buy homes and live, he noted, calling the heat-mapping project “an opportunity to right some of those wrongs."

Once the heat islands are known, local officials will use the information to create policies and plans for improvements.

"Adaptation and resilience does cost money, but this will help the cities know where they should direct their funding," Dello said.

Raleigh and Durham are among cities in 11 states taking part in the NOAA project. Others include Atlanta, Charleston, S.C., Kansas City, Mo., New York and San Francisco.

"As climate change brings worsening heat waves, the information from these campaigns will help bring local and equitable solutions to those facing the greatest threat," Hunter Jones, Climate and Health Project manager with NOAA’s Climate Program Office, said in a statement.

"It’s an amazing opportunity for what we call multi-directional learning for everyone from all types of expertise to learn from one another,” Cawley said.