Las Vegas on Tuesday again came close to the all-time high temperature of 120 degrees Fahrenheit (48.8 Celsius) set Sunday but fell short of a new mark of 119 degrees Fahrenheit (48.3 Celsius), shattering the previous record of 116 degrees Fahrenheit (46.6 Celsius) for the day this year, set in 2021. The city was likely to see a fifth record day above 110 degrees Fahrenheit (46.6 Celsius) on Wednesday, forecasters said.
Even for the desert, the prolonged heat in Nevada’s largest city is hardly unprecedented.
“This is the most extreme heat wave in the history of record in Las Vegas dating back to 1937,” said meteorologist John Adair, a three-decade veteran of the National Weather Service office in Southern Nevada.
Record temperatures
Tuesday’s high temperatures tied the record of four straight days above 46C set in July 2005. And Adair said the record could extend into Friday.
Alyse Sobosan said this July has been the hottest in the 15 years she has lived in Las Vegas. Sobosan, a counselor at a private school that is closed for summer break, said she doesn’t leave her house during the day if she can help it, and waits until 9 p.m. or later to walk her dogs.
“It’s oppressively hot,” she said. “It’s like you can’t live your life.”
It is also a dangerous heat, as health authorities have stressed.
“Even seemingly healthy middle-aged people can get heat illness when it’s so hot that their bodies have trouble cooling themselves,” said Alexis Brignola, an epidemiologist with the Southern Nevada Health District.
The sweltering heat wave gripping much of the United States also produced record daily temperatures in Oregon, where it is suspected to have caused six deaths, the state medical examiner’s office said Tuesday. More than 161 million people in the United States were under heat warnings, especially in the West.
Dozens of places in the West tied or broke previous heat records over the weekend, and were expected to continue doing so throughout the week.
A motorcyclist died in Death Valley National Park over the weekend, a death blamed on heat. Tourists lined up Tuesday to take photos in the park in front of a giant thermometer that read 120 degrees Fahrenheit (48.9 degrees Celsius).
Simon Pell and Lisa Gregory from London stepped out of their air-conditioned mobile home to experience a midday heat shock that would be unthinkable at home.
“I don’t need a thermometer to tell me it’s hot,” Pell said. “You hear about it in nature stories and documentaries. But I wanted to experience what it would be like… It’s an incredible experience.”
Death Valley is considered one of the most extreme environments in the world. The highest officially documented temperature on Earth was 134 degrees Fahrenheit (56.67 degrees Celsius) in July in Death Valley, although some experts dispute that record and believe the actual record was 130 degrees Fahrenheit (54.4 degrees Celsius) recorded there in July 2021.
Daily highs were also set in parts of Oregon and Washington on Tuesday. Portland reached 103 degrees Fahrenheit (39.4 degrees Celsius) and Salem and Eugene reached 105 degrees Fahrenheit (40.5 degrees Celsius). Similar temperatures were also reported in Idaho.
Phoenix, which has recorded its highest average temperature for the first eight days of July dating back to 1885, on Tuesday tied the record of 116 degrees Fahrenheit (46.6 degrees Celsius) set in 1958.
The high of 41.1 C on Tuesday in Reno, Nevada, broke the record for that day of 40 C (104 F), last tied in 2017, and extended to four days the longest streak of 40.5 C (105 F) or higher. The city, at 1,372 meters (4,500 feet) above sea level, had never been that hot for more than two days in a row in records dating back to 1888.
The U.S. heat wave came after record-breaking global temperatures in June for the 13th straight month, the 12th consecutive month in which the world was 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than in the pre-industrial era, according to the European climate service Copernicus. That heat, trapped in the atmosphere by human-caused climate change, is largely due to long-term warming from greenhouse gases emitted by burning coal, oil and natural gas, scientists say.
In Las Vegas, hotels and casinos kept visitors cool with massive air conditioning units. But for homeless residents and others without access to safe environments, officials set up emergency cooling centers at community centers across Southern Nevada.
Polar capsules
Firefighters in Henderson, Nevada, last week became the first in the region to use what city spokeswoman Madeleine Skains called “polar pods” to cool a person showing symptoms of heat stroke or a related medical emergency.
Skains said four vehicles, including battalion commanders’ vehicles in the city of more than 330,000 people, have such devices, similar to those put into use by Phoenix a month ago. They can be filled with water and ice to immerse a patient in cold water all the way to the hospital.
Extreme heat and a prolonged drought in the West have also dried out vegetation, providing fuel for wildfires.
Oregon’s new Larch Creek Fire quickly grew to more than 5 square miles (12 square kilometers) Tuesday afternoon as flames raced through grasslands in Wasco County. Isolated homes about 15 miles (24 kilometers) south of The Dalles were ordered to evacuate.
In California, firefighters were battling at least 18 wildfires Tuesday, including a 42-square-mile (109-square-kilometer) blaze that prompted evacuation orders for about 200 homes in the mountains of Santa Barbara County. The Lake Fire was only 16 percent contained and forecasts called for a “volatile mix” of high temperatures, low humidity and northwest winds expected later in the day.
Northwest of Los Angeles, the 2-square-mile Vista Fire was burning through trees in the San Bernardino National Forest, sending plumes of smoke visible across the region.
The National Weather Service said it would extend excessive heat warnings for much of the southwestern United States through Saturday morning.
“It’s not over yet,” the service’s Reno office said.
Source: With information from AP
