From staff and wire reports
The string of 100 plus days continues this week with Tuesday’s high at 106. Wednesday’s high isn’t expected to dip below 100.
The National Weather Service advises that the excessive heat warning continues and warns not to leave kids or pets in cars and to consider rescheduling outdoor activities.
The area forecast showed Tuesday and Wednesday as two of the hottest days this week. The forecast calls for highs of 110 in the Pecos and the Rio Grande Valley.
They are predicting the high in Odessa/Midland to be well over the record set last year of 105.
Phoenix’s streak of dangerously hot days was poised to smash a record for major U.S. cities on Tuesday, the 19th straight day the temperature in the desert city was to soar to 110 degrees Fahrenheit or more.
Midland has had 9 days in a row of 100 degrees or more and will probably reach 13 days straight on Friday but the streak looks to end Saturday as highs are expected to fall into the 90s across much of the area.
Across the country the heat is slamming residents with the nights having offered little relief from the brutal heat. Phoenix’s overnight low only dropped to 94 on Tuesday, the ninth straight day of temperatures not falling below 90, another record.
It’s “pretty miserable when you don’t have any recovery overnight,” said National Weather Service meteorologist Matt Salerno.
The thermometer reached 100 before 9 a.m. for the sixth straight day on Tuesday.
The length of Phoenix’s heat wave is notable even during a summer in which much of the southern United States and the world as a whole has been cooking in record temperatures, something scientists say is stoked by climate change.
“It’s the longest streak that we’ve ever seen in this country,” said NOAA Climate Analysis Chief Russell Vose, who chairs a committee on national records. “When you have several million people subjected to that sort of thermal abuse, there are impacts.”
What’s going on in a metropolitan area known as the Valley of the Sun is far worse than a short spike in the thermometer, experts said, and it poses a health danger to many.
Ripples of sweat streamed down the sunburned face of Lisa Miccichi, 38, as she pushed a shopping cart filled with her belongings through downtown Phoenix on Tuesday, looking for a place to get out of the heat.
“I’ve been out here a long time and homeless for about three years,” said Miccichi. “When it’s like this, you just have to get into the shade. This last week has been the hottest I ever remember.”
The last time Phoenix didn’t reach 110 F was June 29, when it hit 108. On Monday, the city set a new record with the temperature not dropping below 95.
