RENO, Nev. (AP) — Records fell Thursday in the U.S. Southwest as temperatures topped 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43 degrees Celsius) from southeastern California to Arizona, where the region’s first heat wave of the year was expected to maintain its hold for at least another day.
Although the official start of summer was still two weeks away, about half of Arizona and Nevada were under an excessive heat warning, which the National Weather Service said extended through Friday evening. The heat alert for Las Vegas has been extended until Saturday.
“It’s so hot,” said Eleanor Wallace, 9, who was visiting Phoenix from northern Utah on Thursday on a hike celebrating her birthday with her mother, Megan Wallace.
The National Weather Service in Phoenix, where the new record of 113 F (45 C) on Thursday surpassed the old mark of 111 F (44 C) set in 2016, called conditions “dangerously hot.”
AP correspondent Ben Thomas reports that heat records are falling in the southwestern United States.
There were no immediate reports of heat-related deaths or serious injuries.
But at a campaign rally for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in Phoenix, Late in the afternoon, 11 people became ill from heat exhaustion and were taken to a hospital, where they were treated and released, firefighters said.
And in Las Vegas, with a new record of 111 (43.8 C) on Thursday that also ties the first period of the year where the high reached at least 110 (43.3 C), Clark County firefighters reported responding to at least 12 emergency calls. exposure to heat since Wednesday midnight. Nine of those calls resulted in a patient requiring hospital treatment.
Several other areas in Arizona, California and Nevada also broke records by a degree or two, including Death Valley National Park with a record for the date of 122 (50 °C), exceeding 121 (49.4 °C) from 1996 in the desert which It lies 194 feet (59 meters) below sea level, near the California-Nevada line. The archives date from 1911.
The heat has arrived weeks earlier than usual, even In places further north, at higher altitudes, areas are typically a dozen degrees colder. That includes Reno, where the normal high of 81 F (27 C) for this time of year reached a record 98 F (37 C) on Thursday. The archives date from 1888.
The National Weather Service is forecasting a slight cooling across the region this weekend, but only by a few degrees. In central and southern Arizona, this will still mean triple digit temperatures, even up to 110 F (43 C).
Unseasonably warm weather in Phoenix on Thursday didn’t stop Oscar Tomasio of Cleveland, Ohio, from proposing to his girlfriend, Megan McCracken, as they headed to the top of a trail on Camelback Mountain with 3 liters of water each in tow.
“It was a grueling hike,” Tomasio told the Associated Press. “It was really hot, so we started really early.”
“The views were magnificent. We didn’t make it to the top because she was a little nervous because of the heat,” he said. “So, I proposed to her when the sun came up.”
McCracken confirmed they had planned a sunrise hike and woke up around 5 a.m. to try to beat the heat and impending trail closure.
“Probably not soon enough,” she said.
Megan Wallace, mother of the birthday girl from Utah who also came to pack water bottles, said, “We started a few minutes after 6 and it’s like we were prepared, but we dumped all our water and it was hot – it was hotter. than what we are used to.
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Associated Press writers Anita Snow and Ty O’Neil in Phoenix and Rio Yamat and Ken Ritter in Las Vegas contributed to this report.