PHOENIX — Phoenix didn’t have a record cold night due to a storm last night, but the city doesn’t seem to be able to escape the extreme heat during the day.
The National Weather Service in Phoenix reported the minimum temperature around sunrise on Sunday was 79 degrees Fahrenheit (32.2 degrees Celsius), after as much as 1.77 inches (4.5 centimeters) of monsoon rain fell in the metro area.
Saturday night’s minimum temperature was 33.8 degrees Celsius, equalling last year’s record of 35 degrees Celsius at night.
Meteorologists at the National Weather Service in Phoenix predict that the 36th minimum temperature will likely arrive soon tonight.
The maximum number of consecutive days with temperatures of 90 degrees Fahrenheit or lower is 16. This temperature was reached in July 2023, when Phoenix had its hottest summer on record.
Meanwhile, the city’s heat record continues to pile up.
If we include Sunday’s expected high of 106 degrees (41.1 C), it will have been 100 degrees (37.7 C) or warmer in Phoenix for 84 days in a row.
The previous record was 76 consecutive days with temperatures above 10 degrees Celsius and was set in August 1993.
Meteorologist Isaac Smith of the National Weather Service said there doesn’t appear to be a break in 100-degree days in the near future. An extreme heat warning has been issued for Phoenix for the next few days.
“It’s going to be 45 degrees on Monday and 46 degrees on Tuesday,” Smith said.
Gabriel Lojero, another meteorologist, said heat is bad “because your body doesn’t get enough cooling during the night and doesn’t get a chance to recover.”
Lojero noted that downtown Phoenix in particular suffers from the urban heat island effect, where building materials such as concrete, steel and asphalt trap heat and keep the city warm at night.
Monsoon rains have helped cool the Las Vegas area, where temperatures dropped to 81 (27.2 C) on Thursday, the coolest weather experienced there since June 21. meteorologists there said.
Warmer weekend weather was forecast in New Mexicowith highs in Albuquerque approaching triple digits and even warmer weather in the southern part of the state and in counties along the US-Mexico border.
The grim impact of the hot summer in the Southwest US was already evident in the rising number of heat-related deaths that year.
Public health officials in Maricopa County, Arizona, home to Phoenix, had on August 10 confirmed 96 heat-related deaths for 2024 so far, with another 462 deaths under investigation for heat-related causes. The region of about 4.5 million people has reported 645 heat-related deaths for 2023.
The coroner’s office in Pima County, where Tucson is located, said it had been confirmed 99 heat-related deaths in that county and four other small rural counties in Arizona that use the county’s forensic services.
In Clark County, Nevada, which includes Las Vegas, 123 heat-related deaths have been confirmed so far this year, according to the Office of the Coroner/Path Medical Examiner.
In New Mexico, state health officials reported Friday that there have been more than 760 visits to emergency clinics and hospitals for heat-related illnesses since April 1. That includes 29 visits in the past seven days.
The most recent available data The New Mexico Health Department’s report also shows that there were 11 heat-related deaths in May, all in Doña Ana County. Officials noted that this is an undercount of heat-related deaths in New Mexico, as not all cases fall under the scope of the Office of the Medical Investigator.