RENO, Nev. (KeynoteUSA) — Records fell across the southwestern United States on Thursday as temperatures surpassed 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43 degrees Celsius) from southeastern California to Arizona, where the first wave was expected to maintain its dominance. heat of the year in the region. at least for one more day.
Although the official start of summer is still two weeks away, about half of Arizona and Nevada were under an excessive heat warning, which the National Weather Service said would extend through Friday night. The heat alert for Las Vegas has been extended through Saturday.
“It’s so hot,” said Eleanor Wallace, 9, who was visiting Phoenix from northern Utah on Thursday on a hike to celebrate 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.”
KeynoteUSA correspondent Ben Thomas reports that heat records are falling across the southwestern US.
There were no immediate reports of heat-related deaths or serious injuries.
But at a campaign rally for presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in Phoenix, 11 people fell ill from heat exhaustion in the late afternoon and were taken to the hospital, where they were treated and released, fire officials said.
And in Las Vegas, with a new record of 111 (43.8 C) on Thursday that also tied the first time of year when the high reached at least 110 (43.3 C), the Clark County Fire Department He said he had responded to at least 12 emergency calls. exposure to heat since midnight Wednesday. Nine of those calls resulted in a patient needing hospital treatment.
Several other areas of 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), surpassing the 121 (49.4 C) dating back to 1996. in the desert that is 59 meters (194 feet) below sea level, near the California-Nevada line. Records there date back to 1911.
The heat has arrived weeks earlier than usual even in places further north, in higher areas, areas that are usually a dozen degrees colder. That includes Reno, where the normal high of 81 F (27 C) for this time of year soared to a record 98 F (37 C) on Thursday. Records there date back to 1888.
The National Weather Service predicted a mild cooling across the region this weekend, but only by a few degrees. In central and southern Arizona, that will continue to mean triple-digit highs, even as low as 110 F (43 C).
In Phoenix on Thursday, unseasonably hot weather didn’t stop Oscar Tomasio of Cleveland, Ohio, from proposing to his girlfriend, Megan McCracken, as they sweltered to the top of a trail on Camelback Mountain with 3 liters of water each in tow. .
“It was an exhausting walk,” Tomasio told The KeynoteUSA. “It was very hot, so we started earlier.”
“The views were beautiful. We didn’t make it to the top because she was a little nervous about the heat,” she said. “So, I proposed to her when the sun came up.”
McCracken confirmed that they had planned a sunrise hike and woke up around 5 a.m. in an effort to beat the heat and the impending trail closure.
“Probably not early enough,” he said.
Megan Wallace, mother of the birthday girl from Utah, who also came packing water bottles, said, “We started just a few minutes after 6 and it’s like we came prepared, but we finished all the water and it was hot, it was hotter. “than what we are used to.”
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