HEAT: It’s certainly been warm outside lately, which had us sitting in front of a fan while we looked up some record temperatures around the nation.
The Center for Rural Pennsylvania was moved to do the same, and has posted a datagram with record temperatures and the years they were achieved.
In Pennsylvania, it was 111 degrees in 1936. The hot and dry desert of Arizona reached 128 degrees in 1994, but it looks like the record was set in 1913 in California with a temperature of 134.
We’re betting that temperature was recorded in Death Valley, and it must have been like walking into an oven.
Several of the temperatures were over 120 degrees — Washington State at 120 in 2021, Nevada at 125 in 1994, North Dakota at 121 in 1936, South Dakota at 120 in 2006, Kansas at 121 in 1936, Oklahoma at 120 in 1936, Texas at 120 in 1994, Arkansas at 120 in 1936, and New Hampshire at 122 in 1994.
This year, there have been some sweltering days, even if they don’t reach record highs.
Washington, D.C., broke its record high at 100 on June 22 (we aren’t sure if they counted the hot air from politicians). Baltimore broke a record at 101 degrees.
According to Extreme Weather Watch, the highest temperature ever recorded in Bradford was 99 degrees on July 23, 2011, and the lowest temperature ever was -36 degrees on Jan. 13, 1977.
Science magazine says two spots on Earth have Death Valley beat, the Lut Desert in Iran and the Sonoran Desert along the Mexican-U.S. border have reached 177.4 degrees, according to satellite data.