Death Valley had planet’s hottest 24 hours on record Sunday amid punishing heat wave

When dawn broke Sunday in Death Valley, Calif., the low temperature was a sweltering 107.7 degrees, the highest ever recorded in North America. By the late afternoon, the mercury had swelled to a blazing 128.6 degrees. The combination of the two produced the highest daily average temperature ever observed on the planet: 118.1 degrees.

The astonishingly hot temperatures occurred amid a punishing heat wave in the West, focused between interior Oregon, Central Valley in California and southern Nevada. Intensified by human-caused climate change, the heat wave is fueling fast-moving wildfires and only slowly abating.

Sunday’s probable world record daily average temperature was registered at the Stovepipe Wells weather station in the northern part of Death Valley National Park. It is separate from the more frequently referenced temperature measurements at Death Valley’s Furnace Creek, about 18 miles to the southeast. Furnace Creek is home to the highest maximum temperature recorded on the planet: 134 degrees, set July 10, 1913...MORE