  Current literature suggests that urban heat-islands and their consequences
are intensifying under climate change and urbanization. Here we explore the
relatively unexplored hypothesis that emerging urban corridors (UCs) spawn
megaregions of intense heat which are evident from observations. A delineation
of the eleven United States UCs relative to their underlying climatological
regions (non-UCs) suggest a surprisingly mixed trend. Medians and trends of
winter temperatures over the last 60-years are generally higher in the UCs but
no such general trends are observed in the summer. Heat wave metrics related to
public health, energy demand and relative intensity do not exhibit
significantly higher overall trends. Temperature and heat wave indices in the
UCs exhibit high correlations with each other including across seasons.
Spatiotemporal patterns in population, along with urbanization, agriculture and
elevation, exhibit high (positive or negative) rank correlations with warming
and heatwave intensification. The findings can inform climate adaptation in
megalopolises.
