Still Dreaming of Retirement in the Sun Belt?

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But the pandemic made travel feel unsafe for years. Mr. Cox underwent treatment for prostate cancer. Ms. Cox’s father moved in and needed care. So they have mostly summered in Goodyear. The number of older Americans like the Coxes who are exposed to extreme heat is increasing, the result of an aging population, continuing migration to heat-prone places and climate change. Researchers say the trend will only get worse. “The places that are hot now are precisely the places getting older,” said Deborah Carr, a sociologist at Boston University and lead author of a recent study of population aging and heat exposure. Phoenix, long a retirement destination, has averaged 108 days a year of 100-plus degree temperatures since 1970. But this year has been brutal: By July 31, Phoenix had already reached 68 days this year with temperatures over 100 degrees. Temperatures hit at least 110 degrees Fahrenheit for 31 straight days, from the last day of June to the end of July, setting a record. And hazardous heat returned to the city just this weekend. Summer in the Phoenix suburbs has been “miserable,” Ms. Cox said, on a midmorning when the temperature in Goodyear had already reached 106. “You really can’t go out and do things. We haven’t been as sociable as I’d like.”