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Death Valley, California hit 130 degrees on Friday.
Las Vegas matched its all-time hottest temperature on Saturday, hitting 117 degrees, and the state of Utah also tied its all-time statewide record, hitting 117 in St. George.
As of Sunday morning, nearly 30 million people remained on heat alert in several western states, where temperatures are expected to rise again 10 to 20 degrees above average.
Las Vegas, for example, is expected to climb to almost 117 degrees again. If this happens for the second time in a row, it will be the first time in recorded history.
And all eyes were on Death Valley, to see if they hit 130 degrees again for the second time in three days, or maybe higher than that.
Death Valley is already considered the hottest place in the world, where it reached 134 degrees in 1913. No other reliable weather station has recorded a higher temperature on Earth.
The nocturnal lows were also very hot with this heat wave. Minimums fail to drop below the 90s in desert regions and below the 80s in many of the larger metropolitan areas. When night hours provide little relief, it can increase the risk of heat illness and infrastructure fatigue.
Las Vegas, in fact, only cooled to a suffocating 94 degrees on Sunday morning, which is only one degree cooler than its lowest level of 95 degrees. These dangerously high temperatures are expected to last the first half of the week for most of the western region.
But parts of the southwestern desert and Four Corners region of Colorado, Nevada, Utah and New Mexico could benefit from some relief from the heat in the form of monsoon showers and thunderstorms. It will be a welcome rain after the most recent indicators show that almost 95% of the West is now covered in drought.
And the heat continued to fuel the risk of wildfires in the West.
On Saturday, the Bootleg fire in Oregon spread rapidly and the fire at the Beckwourth complex in northern California doubled in size. Two firefighters were killed while fighting fires in Arizona.
Due to climate change, heat waves occur more frequently, last longer and are increasingly intense. In a study by World Weather Attribution, research found that the Pacific Northwest heat wave that occurred in late June was “virtually impossible” without climate change. The warmer atmosphere, due to human-induced warming, made the heat wave 150 times more likely and on average four degrees warmer compared to the 1800s.
The United States also just recorded its hottest June on record.
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