Scorching Heat in U.S. West continues.
Reuters National Park Service employee Craig Blanchard marks an unofficial high of 130 degrees Saturday in Death Valley, Calif. The Death Valley record, also the world record, is 134. NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — The heat wave that’s baked the western U.S. continued on Sunday, with a number of locations in the Southwest expected to exceed 110 degrees, the National Weather Service said.
The heat was expected to continue at least through Tuesday in most of the West.
On Sunday, the service continued excessive heat warnings for most of the Southwest.
CNN quoted forecasters as saying the heat wave could rival the one in 2005 that killed 17 people in the Las Vegas area.
US Airways in Phoenix said canceled 18 regional flights Saturday as temperatures rose above 118 degrees, the upper limit at which airplanes are certified for takeoff, CNN quoted a company spokesman as saying. US Airways officials didn’t immediately respond to an inquiry about Sunday flights.
Las Vegas was expected to see a high of 115 degrees; Phoenix, 116; and Needles, Calif. 123, according to the service’s digital forecast. Las Vegas and Phoenix suburbs were expected to see similarly high temperatures, as were other cities in the Arizona, Nevada and California deserts.
The weather service said temperatures at Death Valley, Calif., would approach 130 degrees. Death Valley holds the world record o f 134 degrees hit on July 10, 1913.
On Saturday, Death Valley reported a high of 128 degrees (unofficially, it was 130), tying a June record set in 1994, the service’s Las Vegas unit said in a tweet. The unit said on Sunday that Las Vegas’s McCarran airport recently saw 108 degrees. The service’s Phoenix staff said in a tweet that as of 8:30 a.m. Mountain time, temperatures were already 99 degrees.
Forecasters said Palm Springs, Calif., could see an a record high, with many Southern California valley and desert locations seeing triple-digit temperatures, the Los Angeles Times reported.
National Weather Service
“Excessive heat warnings remain in effect for a large portion of California, Nevada, and Arizona, where daytime highs will yet again dangerously soar well past the century mark and overnight lows will barely drop into the 70s and 80s,” the service said. “Triple-digit temperatures will expand north through the Intermountain West and all the way to the Canadian border.”
Meanwhile, the service said stormy weather remained the story along the Eastern Seaboard, with numerous showers and thunderstorms expected to “fire up” from Florida to New England.
The heat wave in the Southwest has left at least one elderly man dead in a home without air conditioning and another hospitalized in serious conditions in Las Vegas, where temperatures shot up to 115 degrees on Saturday afternoon, two degrees short of a record, the Associated Press reported, adding more than 40 other people have been sent to the city’s hospitals since Friday without life-threatening injuries.
Still, officials expect a rise in emergency calls Sunday and Monday as the heat wave continues.
In Northern California, triple-digit and record-breaking temperatures were recorded in Sacramento, Marysville and Stockton, the AP reported, adding the mercury also is expected to soar across Utah, Wyoming and Idaho.
The excessive heat led rangers to position themselves at trailheads to advise people against hiking at a national recreational area at Lake Mead, Nev., and reportedly prompted organizers to cancel a marathon planned for Saturday in Boulder City, Nev.
