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Various weather services are reporting a peak temperature of 129 F/54 C in the aptly named Death Valley, CA today.

Forecasts say the temperature may exceed the all time record of 134 F/57 C by Sunday. The temperature equivalent of tornado chasers will be going into the Valley in hopes of recording a new record.

Me, I want to break out the iced tea just reading about it. No way would I want to go anywhere near that, no matter how dry a heat it may be.

Oh, and that record? The one set on 10 July 1913 at the Furnace Creek Ranch in Death Valley? It's not just the hottest temperature ever recorded in the Valley, not just the hottest temperature ever recorded in North America, it's the hottest air temperature ever recorded on Earth. (There was a prior record in Lybia, but it has since been invalidated due to problems with the measurement and record-keeping)

That's right folks - the world record might fall (or rise, depending on how you look at it) this weekend.


(You just gotta love the names of these locations - Furnace Creek, Death Valley - it really does say something about the place. Other place names in the Valley include Badwater Basin (which on the rare occasions when the Valley gets significant rain can temporarily turn into Badwater lake) Dante's View, and Hells Gate. For a place with PR problems like those it gets a remarkable number of tourists every year. Also remarkably, given the climate, people have been living in the Valley for about the last 1,000 years, maybe more.)

Just don't use your GPS there.

What's the problem with GPS there?

Death Valley is remote and rural enough, with a bunch of dirt roads and old trails that some of the 'roads' painted by GPS companies are based on old maps with roads that are now borderline nonexistant - sometimes not even borderline. There are signs in Death Valley telling people to stay on designated roads because the local rangers don't trust GPS even with the updates made by the companies.

Jesus fucking Christ. I have nothing else that I can say right now

Kuja wrote:Death Valley is remote and rural enough, with a bunch of dirt roads and old trails that some of the 'roads' painted by GPS companies are based on old maps with roads that are now borderline nonexistant - sometimes not even borderline. There are signs in Death Valley telling people to stay on designated roads because the local rangers don't trust GPS even with the updates made by the companies.

They put up bigger signs a year back after someone died specifically saying "Stick to marked paved roads unless you know what your doing, your GPS can not be trusted here." It got a laugh out of me for reminding me of the British disused artillery range signs "Warning stay on the paths, do not pick up anything or it will explode and kill you".

I shudder just thinking of that. I don't do well in heat, so that would be baaaaddd for me.

Mr Bean wrote:They put up bigger signs a year back after someone died specifically saying "Stick to marked paved roads unless you know what your doing, your GPS can not be trusted here." It got a laugh out of me for reminding me of the British disused artillery range signs "Warning stay on the paths, do not pick up anything or it will explode and kill you".

Of course, it's not just a matter of GPS problems, people are always wandering off where they shouldn't in wilderness areas. The non-locals frequently don't have a clue just how easy it is to get lost, and how quickly conditions in a place like that can kill you.

I was in Death Valley six weeks ago and I can attest that the dry heat there was... Insane. It 'only' got to 45 celsius. Riding through that on a motorcycle is... Yeah.

As for the signs saying to stick to the roads, I saw those and thought that it was to prevent people from tearing up the scenery in their offroaders. Good grief.

I remember driving through Death Valley years ago. Boy was it hot; though not on this level. Air temperatures of that level are phenomenally hot; I was in the Kalahari for days in the same ballpark. It is extraordinarily dangerous, especially if you are (as most people driving through Death Valley) not adequately prepared. You need a LOT of water out there.

tim31 wrote:As for the signs saying to stick to the roads, I saw those and thought that it was to prevent people from tearing up the scenery in their offroaders. Good grief.

While they don't want people tearing up the scenery those signs really are to help prevent deaths out in the desert. It's a problem in the southwest, and always has been. Not a year goes by in the parks and wilderness areas of the American west when some tourist (and usually more than one) gets lost and dies, often surprisingly near a road or other form of safety.

On the other hand, when it rains the desert blooms - Google on "Death Valley in bloom" for some very pretty pictures.

Quick update - I was curious so I checked the weather forcast for Death Valley, CA for the next 10 days. Daytime highs forecast to be in excess of 51 C throughout that entire period in Furnace Creek.

Ew.

There has been one monumental blocking pattern around the American south-west for about a year now. It's somewhat unprecedented, and ties into my following of Arctic sea ice over the last several years. The warping of the Rossby waves in the northern hemisphre, or more formally the jet stream, because of melting sea ice, has led to these kinds of phenomena now. The wet summer of 2012 in the UK was down to this. Hurricane Sandy and the extreme winters of the last two years on the US east coast and in Europe were too.

Basically, right now the west is experiencing tropical heat leaking up, while the east has been usually on the receiving end of a trough in the jet stream causing arctic air to come down south. Extremes at both ends of the mercury will be hit more often now.

I've been in Vegas when the weather was around 120F or so. You could scarcely stand to be outside for more than a few minutes since the sidewalk was like walking on a coal pit.

If the air in Vegas is 120 F then, assuming it's day time and the sun is shining pavement may well be 170 F or higher. Hot enough to cause actual burns to exposed flesh should it come into contact with the surface. So yeah, it's like walking on something very hot, even through shoes.

It broke the temperature record here in Salt Lake City on saturday (105 degrees F, to beat the previous record 104 F).

Nitpick: That's the record for the month of June. The record high in Salt Lake is 107, which has happened twice. Still, I'm really hoping we don't end up setting a new record. I walk to work in that shit. This is Salt Lake, not St George.

When air temperature is 50C, pavement temperature is usually somewhere 70-80

I lived in Dampier for 5 years, hottest day I ever saw was 56C (by my dad's thermometer)
It was not a good day for golf, I can assure you

That said, if you live in those conditions, you get rather used to them
I find regular 'human' summer to be quite disappointing and passe

really? I'm fucking greatful to get back to a place where a really hot and sunny day means cricket and pimms, not your skin crackling.