Death Valley (Calif.) Temps, July, 2003

[sav858]

Originally Posted by FVWinters

Death Valley can be abysmally hot in high summer. We were there in late May of 2007 and we were fortunate enough to arrive in the middle of a cold snap. All it managed to get up to was 97.
If you-all are interested in other global ovens, have I got a book for you!
It is called "Extreme Weather: A guide and record book". Authored by Christopher C. Burt, It contains all sorts of factoids about all manner of extreme weather.
I hope I don't get cut off at the kneecaps for mentioning this book; it is advertising - sort of, and that's frowned upon. But in any case it can be had in any big box book store and has been out long enough a copy or two might be found in your local library.

I have that book and love it!! So interesting...

[sav858]

Originally Posted by Fleet

Yeah, 2006 was a hot summer in Southern California. It went as high as 111.5 degrees where I live and I'm not even in the desert!

Although most of SoCal was hating the heat of that summer I was loving it! For the month of July 2006 San Diego averaged a high temperature of 80 degrees and a low of 70, which is PERFECT to me! It felt very warm, humid, and tropical much of that summer, although some of those nights where it stayed in the mid 70's with humidity was really tough to sleep in w/o AC.

[Fleet]

Originally Posted by sav858

The highest temperature ever recorded in Death Valley, and the Western Hemisphere as far as I know, is 134 degrees. So DV ain't that far off....

A reading of 136.4 degrees at Al 'Aziziyah (el-Azizia), Libya, was obtained by the National Geographic Society but is not officially recognized by the Libyan Ministry of Communications.
The question also is whether that reading was recorded in a ventilated, white enclosure with the thermometer between 4 and 5 feet off the ground.

The official 134.6 degree temperature at Death Valley (Furnace Creek Ranch) was recorded in an official, approved structure. The average July maximum at Death Valley is 10% hotter than at the el-Azizia location.

Also, there are other locations in Death Valley which are even hotter than Furnace Creek Ranch. For instance, the summer temperature at Badwater averages 4 degrees warmer than at FCR.

Incidentally, in June, 1994, a park ranger measured 131 degrees at Badwater with a sling psychrometer.