Heat in Death Valley....

PopsnTuff

Well-known Member
Location
Virginia USA
Part of Death Valley reached 130 degrees Fahrenheit on Sunday. If verified by climate scientists, it would be the highest temperature ever reliably recorded on earth.
The recording is being verified by the US National Weather Service.
It comes amid a heatwave on the US's west coast, where temperatures are forecast to rise further this week.
The scorching conditions have led to two days of blackouts in California, after a power plant malfunctioned on Saturday.
"It's an oppressive heat and it's in your face," Brandi Stewart, who works at Death Valley National Park, told the BBC.

The current heatwave stretches from Arizona in the south-west, up the coast to Washington state in the north-west.
It is expected to hit its peak on Monday and Tuesday, before temperatures start to drop later in the week. However, the sweltering heat will continue for at least another 10 days.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53788018

(And we think our weather is hot! :( )
 

iu
 
Death Valley was given its forbidding name by a group of pioneers lost here in the winter of 1849-1850. Even though, as far as we know, only one of the group died here, they all assumed that this valley would be their grave.
It can be dangerously cold during the winter months. Storms in the mountains can produce sudden flooding on the floor of the Valley. The air temperature during the summer has been as high as fifty-seven degrees Celsius. ... The extreme heat of Death Valley has killed people in the past.
 
I crossed Death Valley in 1986 on a motorcycle , the temp was 124 ! I was only 37 yrs old, healthy & in all honesty while moving, it wasn't all that bad. We stopped 2-3 times, to wet down our shirts, fill our helmets with water LOL , etc . But it became a memorable experience .

On the way home, we crossed another desert farther north, said to be 109 degrees ...... it felt just as hot ?
 
The entire Western third of the nation has been experiencing excessive heat, for the past few days. This coupled with the wildfires and electrical outages must be making life miserable for many of those in California. Then, a few days ago, extremely high winds devastated parts of Iowa. and destroyed huge farms, and left thousands there without power. If that isn't enough Hurricane season is fast approaching, and the weather service is warning about a high number of storms along the East coast.

2020 is turning out to be a really miserable year.
 
The entire Western third of the nation has been experiencing excessive heat, for the past few days. This coupled with the wildfires and electrical outages must be making life miserable for many of those in California. Then, a few days ago, extremely high winds devastated parts of Iowa. and destroyed huge farms, and left thousands there without power. If that isn't enough Hurricane season is fast approaching, and the weather service is warning about a high number of storms along the East coast.

2020 is turning out to be a really miserable year.
You are so right!
 
There is an article in today's paper about how this is caused by trapped methane. This gas could destroy the planet by overheating.

Methane is a far more dangerous Green House Gas than CO2....and there are millions of tons of that gas locked in the Permafrost in northern Canada and Siberia....and even in the depths of the oceans. As the planet warms, more and more of this gas will be released into the atmosphere....which will raise the global temperatures even further. Future generations are going to face challenges we can hardly imagine.
 
There is a sign along the highway thru there that says it is dangerous to walk there due to the heat. There are many other dangers lurking in Death Valley as well folks.
The danger is the hot asphalt melting the soles of your shoes & gluing you to the ground (like a glue trap for mice), then you can overheat.
That's happened to me twice.

;)
 
I was in Palm Springs a few years ago. It was over 100 every day that I was there, but I always heard about ‘dry’ heat and it not seeming as hot. I always questioned that, but I think differently now. The one day was 106 degrees and it didn’t feel all that hot. I would imagine 130 would really be hot, maybe even hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk.
 

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