By Yaron Steinbuch of the NY Post
Death Valley more than lived up to its name Sunday, when the mercury at the aptly named village of Furnace Creek soared to a scorching 130 degrees – possibly the highest recorded temperature on Earth, according to a report.
The sizzling reading was reached at 3:41 p.m. amid a historic heat wave in the West, according to the National Weather Service. If verified, it would break Death Valley’s previous August record by three degrees, the Washington Post reported.
It also would be among the top-three highest temps ever measured on Earth at any time — and may, in fact, be the highest, according to the newspaper.
“Everything I’ve seen so far indicates that is a legitimate observation,” Randy Cerveny, who leads the World Meteorological Organization’s weather and climate extremes team, told the Washington Post in an email.
“I am recommending that the World Meteorological Organization preliminarily accept the observation. In the upcoming weeks, we will, of course, be examining it in detail, along with the U.S. National Climate Extremes Committee, using one of our international evaluation teams,” Cerven added.
Caroline Rohe, a park ranger at the Death Valley National Park, posted a photo of the stratospheric reading on a thermometer at the visitor center.
“Could be a world record temperature! We hit 130 degrees today at Death Valley. (The visitor center thermometer runs 3-4 degrees warmer.),” she wrote.
The desert in Eastern California holds the record for the hottest temperature ever recorded on the planet — 134 degrees, which the US Weather Bureau recorded on July 10, 1913, at Furnace Creek. Read more from the NY Post
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