Death Valley hits 130 degrees, near world record | Hacker News Reader

Death Valley hits 130 degrees, near world record

washingtonpost.com

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If Death Valley hits 131F today, that will be the highest reliably recorded air temperature on earth. In fact up to 134F is within the range of possibilities today and tomorrow, which would hit and exceed the less reliably recorded values from 1913 and the 1920s in Tunisia.

By the 2050s.. who knows, maybe 140F will be within reach.

It's amazing what we can achieve if we set our minds to it!

humanity moment

Team work makes the dream work.

I imagine my manger saying this.

I'm already not wanting to work there any more.

Reach for the stars!

The temperature at the surface of the Sun is about 10,000 Fahrenheit (5,600 Celsius).

It's like the most depressing 4-minute mile.

Here's the live (hourly*) temperature data from the Death Valley station,

https://hads.ncep.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/hads/interactiveDisplays/...

*(Transmits each hour at the +1m 40s offset).

Wikipedia claims this is 134F, not 131F, but that is apparently disputed.

> The hottest air temperature ever recorded in Death Valley was 134 °F (56.7 °C), on July 10, 1913, at Greenland Ranch (now Furnace Creek),[6] which is the highest atmospheric temperature ever recorded on earth.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Valley#Climate

Perhaps read your parent again? They are distinguishing between reliable recent measurements and unreliable older ones.

How accurate were thermometers in 1913?

Accurate enough. Saint Petersburg has been registering daily temperature measurements and publishing them in newspapers since 1778 (in Delisle scale).

Hotly disputed

Sunday is forecast to be hotter.

131F = 55C

For those who are wondering.

Am only wondering when the US will switch to Celsius like the rest of the world.

At least we got Fahrenheit 451, but still.

There is some dispute about whether other, supposedly higher recorded temperatures were actually valid readings. Original long-form blog post here[1], and a summary taken from here[2] reads as follows:

"Burt wrote a detailed 2016 blog post at Weather Underground challenging the 1913 record at Death Valley, explaining that official readings of 134, 130, and 131 degrees Fahrenheit taken on July 10, 12, and 13, 1913 were likely the result of an inexperienced observer. In order for the 1913 Death Valley record to be decertified, though, an official World Meteorological Organization investigation committee would have to be assembled to look into the matter, a years-long process for which there is currently no motivation.

The only other temperature of at least 130 degrees Fahrenheit officially recognized by the World Meteorological Organization is a 131-degree reading at Kebili, Tunisia, set July 7, 1931, which is considered to be Africa’s hottest temperature.

Burt disputed this record: “I mentioned to the WMO about the Kebili temperature of 131 degrees Fahrenheit back in 2012, when asked what I thought the next hottest temperature in Africa (after Al Azzia) might be, since that was the only temperature over 130 degrees Fahrenheit that had an actual date attached to it. However, the Kebili ‘record’ is even more bogus than even the Al Azzia record, and I said so. Kebili is a relatively cool spot in Tunisia (an oasis) and never since the 1930s ever again recorded a maximum temperature above 118 degrees Fahrenheit. The WMO wanted something for their ‘Africa’ section at that time, and somehow the 131 degrees Fahrenheit made it into the database with no consideration of its validity whatsoever. Nowhere in Africa has any reliably observed temperature been measured above 126 degrees Fahrenheit.”"

1. https://www.wunderground.com/blog/weatherhistorian/an-invest...

2. https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2020/08/death-valley-cali...

130 degrees Fahrenheit = 54.4 degrees Celsius

I've experienced 50 degrees Celsius in the Sahara. Hard to imagine hotter.

I’ve experienced 100C in a sauna :)

It’s a lot different though, since you can exit the sauna into air that is substantially colder, you can’t escape the desert heat.

Only in the way I “experienced” 300+C by jumping through a bonfire. You never reach a true equilibrium in a Sauna that hot, but you can reach an equilibrium in 50C when the humidity is low enough.

Good point, 5 minutes at 100C is nothing like spending all day at 50C.

We used to get stuff out an oven which cars were baked in after being painted. Lots of close on an run. In hindsight, very stupid.

Reminds me of a great little story I just read about working in a brick yard in the 50s.

https://brickcollecting.com/merwin.htm

Yeah, I found some cool bricks and wondered if brick collecting was a thing.

It is - a demolition yard near me had a particular pole that weren’t for sale. The yard owner kept the best for himself.

Ones made by prisoners. One with a nice glaze etc.

Apples and Oranges. Saunas have much lower humidity, and also you are exposed for much shorter duration of time. 100C is the boiling point of water; so if you stay for an extended period, you'll probably die.

Some people who live in 50C temperatures do not have access to AC or a reliable water source.

Saunas (at least the way we enjoy them here in Finland) can be pretty humid, because we throw water on the stones of the stove. But throwing too much water can make it intolerable, and lethal if you don't follow your instinct to leave if it gets too hot.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-10904691

Normally in a sauna it's not constantly so humid that sweating wouldn't be able to keep your body temperature normal (as long as you stay hydrated). Throwing water on the stove raises the humidity just momentarily and makes you sweat at full capacity, but normally you would wait for some minutes before throwing more water.

If air is humid enough, sweating can't cool the body anymore because sweat won't evaporate, so already 35C is lethal in 100% humidity.

https://phys.org/news/2020-05-potentially-fatal-combinations...

Also the feeling of radiation. I remember experiencing 123F in death valley and the feeling of my skin just feeling weird

Are you a boiled chicken? Do saunas actually get that hot?

googles

I guess they can. Seems bonkers though.

even higher, I've been in Wi Spa in LA that gets up to 231f/110c

Sauna at my gym ranges around 200 F +/- about 10 degrees, according to the thermometer on the wall, so getting close to 100 C. I sit in it about 20 minutes after a workout. Yes I am sweating buckets by the end. It feels good though.

Dry air is a bad thermal conductor, so the body can easily deal with the hot air for a while.

It quickly gets uncomfortable when they pour water on hot stones in the sauna. Humidity really makes all the difference.

And just how much sunlight was in your sauna?

100℃? You were in boiling water temperature? How's that possible? Or did you mean to say 100°F?

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-10912578

Narh, it's 100C. Sauna can be pretty hard-core.

I have experienced 50 in Multan, Pakistan many summers multiple times. It's a city though, not a desert. There are many other cities where temperatures go this high each summer.

I've experienced 50 degrees Celsius in Las Vegas.

But then I stepped back into the air conditioning.

Vegas has never been 50C.

The record high for the city is 117 degrees Fahrenheit (47.22C) at McCarran International Airport, most recent previous to today was in June 2017, according to the National Weather Service.

The city has recorded that high temperature five times, including today.

That's in the shadows, right?

Technically speaking there is no "in the sun" temperature because it would depend on how much thermal energy the thermometer material absorbs from light.

Exactly. Mass of air has temperature and an object like thermometer can come into equilibrium with air temperature.

On the other hand an object in sunlight will have temperature that has very complex relationship with a lot of parameters including shape of the object or windspeed.

Further, the object will not come into equilibrium and will show a gradient of temperature meaning the readout will depend on where you measure.

> including shape of the object or windspeed

I suppose the air (the wind) tends to be colder than objects in the sun, since most sunshine pass straight through the air.

A way to investigate this, is to step barefoot on flat black stones, in the summer sunshine

There are two equilibrium temperatures, i.e. temperatures that likely don’t depend much on the device that you are using:

* under a tent, i.e. in the shadow and sheltered from direct wind: commonly used and correspond to the temperature of the air;

* wet bulb: more recently under attention, correspond to the effect of cooling by evaporation similar to what a healthy human body does. Wet-bulb often gives much lower number in a dry heat and is more significant for human survival. I’ve read that 32ºC or 88ºF are likely were prolonged exposure lead to adverse health but don’t quote me on that.

"Under a tent" (or air temperature) is more useful. It is going to telly you how hot will be objects that come into equilibrium with air which you can't tell from wet bulb temperature. You can derive wet bulb temperature from air temperature and humidity.

Also measuring air temperature is easier and more practical as it is just enough to measure temperature of an object that comes into equilibrium with air.

> There are two equilibrium temperatures.

The third one is radiative equilibrium. You could achieve that in a solar furnace, the object won't get hotter than the black body temperature of sunlight, which is ~5800K.

The hottest I ever felt was 114° in the DFW area in Texas. I cannot even fathom another 16 degrees. Even with low humidity, 130° is a killer. Even worse though are places in the world not quite as hot, but with high humidity, where the body cannot cope with cooling you down. If heat continues to go up, I wonder how many places on earth will become uninhabitable, and where will the people there then go?

Maybe the future of humanity is underground, it does not take very far before the temperature is very pleasant. I recall walking down the path in Carlsbad Caverns when it was 100° outside, and the cave was at a constant 53° or so.

> The hottest I ever felt was 114° in the DFW area in Texas. I cannot even fathom another 16 degrees. Even with low humidity, 130° is a killer.

Humidity makes a bigger difference than you might think.

Death Valley at 130F and 6% humidity (the current Death Valley humidity) has a heat index similar to somewhere at 100F and 50% humidity (common humidity for DFW, Texas).

Heat index isn't perfect, but 114F with DFW humidity might have felt significantly worse than 130F with Death Valley humidity.

I mean, we already air condition a lot. My guess is if an area is uninhabitable for a small portion of the year, we'll build more structures designed to convey people between buildings and their vehicles without people actually going outdoors, such that you just don't go outside when it's that hot.

As a Chicagoan, I'd like to see more built that way just for the winter...

That being said, underground is pretty efficient energy-wise, it'll just depend on whether or not that exceeds the costs of building underground, which is generally significant.

When I lived in south Florida we would pretty much went from our air conditioned houses to our air conditioned cars to our air conditioned schools/stores/work. I’d usually wait until after midnight to go for a run since it was “cooler”.

Yeah, I've done a bit of that when traveling. I guess the question becomes: "what do we do when even the walk to your car is unsafe", which is a point we will reach the closer we get to temperatures that are actually enough to boil water. ;)

I imagine being able to summon a car would become a key feature, for instance, since storing everyone's vehicles indoors is unlikely to be economical.

Something like the Minneapolis Skyway? It has it's good points and bad points. Like a mall, it's sort of a public space - but not really.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minneapolis_Skyway_System

Yeah, I'm jealous of the Minneapolis Skyway. IIRC, there's an underground area in Chicago that is similar.

tiny digression, I'm regularly amazed at how a simple tree can make a hot spot liveable.. one mango tree in front of my grandmother's house is our lunch spot because it's just slightly cooler, slightly windier, when the rest is burning

also whenever it's burning.. I go in the forest, it's a lot chiller obviously..

my point is nature was good a finding solutions for that when possible. Turning light into energy for plants while making cool shadows underneath

At high enough humidity, shade won't save you - evaporative cooling (your body sweating) does not work.

There is a temperature/humidity line across which a perfectly healthy person, sitting in shade and drinking unlimited water, will die.

That's why this is terrifying. There's no "gee nature is great a tree will save us" about this.

I was not talking about this limit case but the range between normal and this.

It was 115 (though our car said it was 119) two weekends ago in Oregon. Of course, that was the weekend we had arranged to move houses. All day outside lugging boxes and furniture was no bueno.

130 is a medium rare steak. You could literally let your steak sit outside all day and end up with a perfectly cooked steak - although I suspect it would be gross and probably loaded with bacteria.

Nice, open-air sous vide. At a constant 130 F, after 2-3 hours the steak should be fully pasteurized and nicely medium rare.

I was thinking that too but I also was concerned that new bacteria would join the party since it’s not in a bag?

Could throw it on the asphalt I guess and maybe get some browning to boot.

> At a constant 130 F, after 2-3 hours the steak should be fully pasteurized and nicely medium rare.

2 hours at an internal temperature of 130 for pasteurization (and still only rare.)

The problem is the effects of the bacterial activity in the time it takes to reach and hold at 130, which when your cooking medium is dry air at 130 is...quite a while.

> 130 is a medium rare steak

No, 130 is just plain rare. Medium rare is ~145.

> You could literally let your steak sit outside all day and end up with a perfectly cooked steak

Well, no, because...

> although I suspect it would be gross and probably loaded with bacteria.

Yeah, it would be rotten, not “perfectly cooked”, even if you are aiming for rare.

Indeed, I am preparing my medium-rare steaks in sous-vide at 130f. Of course heat transfer is widely different between air and water, thats why no one is actually preparing steaks that way, but just thinking that the air temperature is equivalent to the steak cooking temperature shows how hot it is and how bare survival depends on active cooling.

It was 118 degrees in my town a bit outside of Seattle last week.

Utterly insane for a place known for being cold and rainy.

Climate change is going to shift habitable zones northward. There are vast swaths of currently uninhabitable Canadian & Russian permafrost that are about to become pleasant grasslands.

Check out a Koppen climate classification map:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%B6ppen_climate_classifica...

The largest areas on earth are Dfc (subarctic), Dwf (hot desert), and EF (ice cap). The pleasant areas - C?? and D?[ab] - are relatively small parts of the earth surface. If climate change lifts the cool-summer zones of earth (those ending in c or d) into warm-summer, it has a lot more headroom to increase human-habitable areas than the heating of already-hot areas.

Climate change will likely be good for humanity and fatal for a significant portion of humans. These are not mutually-incompatible statements.

I visited Death Valley in the summer year ago. I remember the birds would line up in the narrow shadows cast by the telephone poles to stay out of the sun.

Furnace Creek in Death Valley is actually decently shaded by some of the most prominent mountains in North America. I wonder if the air temperature would be higher if the sun hit the area earlier.

Sunrise is 5:39am, but it's actually in mountain shade until 6:14am. Sunset is 8:07pm, but it's actually already in mountain shade at 7:43pm. The mountains cut out a good hour of direct sunlight.

Here's an interactive map if you're interested: https://shademap.app/#36.4344,-116.85894,12z,1625922915384t

Shade, even sunlight, isn't what makes death valley so hot. It is the valley part. Adiabatic cooling/heating as the air moves up and down the mountains is what makes the valley floor so hot. Take away those mountains and you loose that heat engine.

https://www.geographyrealm.com/geography-facts-about-death-v...

"The confluence of several topographical and geographic factors have resulted in some of Earth’s highest air temperatures. Solar heating of the desert floor, the movement of warm air from adjacent areas (known as advection), adiabatic heating as air descends the ranges west of Death Valley, and the trapping of air in the valley all contribute to scorching temperatures. "

Makes sense. I checked out Turbat, Pakistan and Kebili, Tunisia (noted for record temps) and at first glance their topography is less of a valley so some other mechanisms must be dominant there.

I advise discounting dependence on natural shade at Furnace Creek. Death Valley isn’t called “Death Valley” because of tourism board branding.

There’s a reason park brochures don’t show overnight trails. The reason is reality thumps theory and the reality is harsh.

Imagining it as someplace like Disneyland is a bad idea.

Having lived very near Death Valley, and been in Death Valley hundreds of times, especially in the summer, I can tell you the shade makes zero difference. Remember that it's almost entirely rocks, pebbles, and sand so the heat is stored from one day to the next. It doesn't get very much of an overnight reset like in temperate climates.

The hottest I ever experienced there was 124° on the big sign by the general store. The temperature sensor in my car said it was hotter, but I was mostly amazed that a Fiat and its tiny air conditioner was able to cope with 120's for a week.

I'm not sure that shade map is so accurate. I looked at my house and it wasn't even close. Also, it completely changed based on zoom level. If you zoom in it will show tall buildings shading all day, but I assure you that the tall buildings nearby do not provide any shade to my property.

It's a bit tricky with high zoom levels because there might be a mountain 5 miles away that's casting shade on your block but at high zoom levels, features far away tend to be ignored for performance reasons.

I've been using the map for mountaineering and in my experience it's quite accurate +/-2 to 3 minutes.

Do you live in the extreme north or south? Maybe the elevation data for your region is not accurate. The buildings are not quite fleshed out yet. Here's another project that might provide better results: https://app.shadowmap.org

I live in Cupertino, right between the two Apple campuses. The problem for me is too much shadow. For example, it says that the Apple campuses keep my house in shadow for much of the day, which I can assure you is not accurate. Other tall buildings cause the same problem.

It probably works a lot better in nature where all of the sources of shadow are natural mountains.

It looks like it'll beat that today.

Yesterday, it reached 130 at 23:54 GMT.

But it's trending hotter today: the current hour peak temperature is 127.4, and the same hour peak temperature yesterday was only 124.4. There's about two or so more hours of heating left in the day, which yesterday added 5.6 degrees in heat vs the 2100 hour peak.

If that happens - the same heating would cause it to reach 133F - it'll shatter the (reliable) world records.

Nice from them to provide the rain precipitation!

Have been to the Death Valley twice in November and January. Truly amazing place!

Yeah but it’s a dry heat

Doesn't 130 degree water like burn skin or something? Would it be dangerous just to be outside in that condition?

Growing up in Palm Springs I remember it breaking 120 all the time. For me these records seem like a particularly hot day in Palm Springs.

It's only been 123 F in Palm Springs 3 times and 122 F ~ 1/2 a dozen, so I doubt you remember this happening "all the time". It's never been any where close to 130F there, but nice flex anyway.

Where can I see those numbers?

https://www.cactushugs.com/hottest-days-palm-springs-history...

Looks like they're a few years out of date. It hit 123 in PS a few weeks ago

Weird that as the temperature lowered your count was doubling but then you strategically omitted 120, 121? It’s not a “flex” that it was hot (??)

I love these programmer types on HN that are always looking for some way to tell someone they’re wrong.

I know, let’s spend a few hours to plot every day it was 120, 121, 122, 123 on a chart, debate the role of “feels like” temperatures, debate what all the time means, and then we can have an Internet panel decide if 130 really does seem like a particularly hot day for someone from Palm Springs.

And by the way, since you’re so smart, how is 123 “no where close” to 130?

Maybe your used to hotter environments but for me at least the difference between 100 and 93 is a lot! 100 is the no go zone but 93 I can take!

But you are wrong. I'm sorry you're upset that "programmer types" are telling you that... do you think it's better to allow misinformation to spread uncorrected? That doesn't seem very helpful.

Even according to @EliRivers's link, it only hit 121 twice. Unfortunately the article doesn't have 120, but given the distribution it's fair to assume it's only been a handful of times historically as well.

Nobody's talking about "feels like" temperatures (they don't exist on thermometers), and "all the time" doesn't need a debate -- it's obviously significantly more than once a summer, for example.

So in every possible way, it seems your statement that Palm Springs hit 120 all the time is 100% wrong. It would be better to just accept that graciously.

What it’s fair to assume is that Palm Springs has broken 120 multiple times per summer and over the course of many years yes I’d call this “all the time” — as in, not a rare occurrence. It would be better not to make a sport out of trying to prove people wrong when they’re not making a precise scientific statement in the first place and you don’t know what you’re talking about.

I don't really see the reason to be so aggressive in gate-keeping. It broke 120 three years in a row ('93-'95).

It doesn't technically mean "all the time", but if you were born in say '89, 3 years in a row could be half your life at that point. And those kinds of early memories/conclusions are the ones you carry with you well into later in life.

Yeah same.i clearly remember visiting palm springs and seeing the car thermometer read 120 outside.

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