Every year around the Summer Solstice, Badwater (elevation - 278.9′) in Death Valley, California often reaches temperatures around 130 degrees.
This year is no different. Tomorrow, Tuesday June 20, the forecast is for the temperature to reach 129 degrees around 5 pm. Tonight’s low is supposed to be 100 degrees so the temperature only has to rise 30 degrees during the day to hit the magic 130 number.
The area around Badwater promises to be absolutely crawling with weather geeks from around the world hoping to be able to claim. “I was there”.
What’s the highest temperature you have experienced?
I was in Palm Springs, CA years ago when it hit 122.
117F (47.2C) on June 30, 2013 here in Las Vegas. And it looks like I’ll get to experience it again tomorrow.
I may have experienced hotter temps than that in some locations while hiking, but I have no way of getting an “official” temperature for un-named canyons and arroyos in Nevada and Arizona.
There was a big family reunion at my grandparent’s farm when I was a kid. We cousins were playing outside. Someone inside called out to tell us it the radio said it was 113. We kept on playing.
I was in Phoenix in 1994 when they had the record-setting heatwave with temps in the 120-degree range. That was the year they suspended take offs at Sky Harbor–which is apparently happening this week too.
I also experienced the big heatwave in the northwest in 2009–here’s an un-retouched image that I took of the Olive Hut Thermometer in Corning, California.
I once hiked from The Thousand Palms oasis in the Coachella valley across the desert to the nearby Indian Palms oasis 1.5 miles away in August with the shade temp being 118.
You sure know you’re alive when it feels like you might not be for much longer.
It was actually quite lovely in the shade of the Indian Palms oasis, with a breeze blowing, and humidity of maybe 4%. But we had the right clothes for the hike and LOTS and LOTS of very cold water.
It was 114 in my home town in the 2009 bay area heat wave. We went out to dinner because we didn’t want to heat up the house, but just as we ordered our dinner, there was a power outage city-wide and they couldn’t serve. We struggled home in the gridlocked traffic and ate cold cereal and milk. I think I remember that we registered the highest temp in the state that day.
