Death Valley in California soars to 54.4 degrees C
Death Valley’s Furnace Creek in Southern California has recorded the highest global temperature in over 100 years. According to the US National Weather Service, a thermometer at the Death Valley soared to 130 degrees Fahrenheit (54.4 Celsius). The recorded temperature is the highest in more than a century, it said.
Commenting on the Death Valley temperature, NWS Las Vegas stated, “If verified, this will be the hottest temperature officially verified since July of 1913."
NWS Las Vegas owns the automated observation system and said the temperature reading on Sunday afternoon emphasised that it was preliminary.
It will need to undergo a formal review before the record is confirmed because of its significance, it said on its Twitter feed, linking to an NWS statement.
The National Weather Service’s automated weather station close to the Furnace Creek visitors’ center near the border with Nevada hit the extreme high at 3:41 pm local time.
Death Valley is a desert valley in Eastern California, in the northern Mojave Desert, bordering the Great Basin Desert. It is one of the hottest places on Earth, along with deserts in the Middle East and the Sahara.
On the afternoon of July 10, 1913, the United States Weather Bureau had recorded a high temperature of 134 °F (56.7 °C) at Furnace Creek in Death Valley, which stands as the highest ambient air temperature ever recorded at the surface of the Earth.
This reading, however, and several others were taken in that period, a century ago, are in dispute by some modern experts.
On 16 August 2020 a temperature 130 °F (54.4 °C) was recorded at the US-NWS automated weather station at Furnace Creek, which, if confirmed, is the hottest.
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