LOS ANGELES — A prolonged heat wave that has broken previous records in the US continued on Sunday, leaving parts of the West with dangerous temperatures that caused the death of motorcyclists in Death Valley and gripped the East in the grip of heat and humidity.
An extreme heat warning — the National Weather Service’s highest alert — was in effect for about 36 million people Sunday, or about 10% of the population, NWS meteorologist Bryan Jackson said. Dozens of locations in the West and Pacific Northwest tied or broke previous heat records.
That’s certainly what happened over the weekend: Many parts of Northern California exceeded 110 degrees (43.3 C), with the city of Redding at a record high of 119 (48.3 C). Phoenix set a new daily record on Sunday for warmest temperature: it never went below 92 F (33.3 C).
High temperatures of 128 F (53.3 C) were recorded Saturday and Sunday in Death Valley National Park in eastern California, where a visitor died Saturday of heatstroke and another person was hospitalized, officials said.
The two visitors were part of a group of six motorcyclists riding in the Badwater Basin area amid hot weather, the park said in a statement.
The person who died was not identified. The other motorcyclist was transported to a Las Vegas hospital for “severe heat illness,” the statement said.
Four other members of the party were treated at the scene.
Park officials warn that heat illness and injuries are cumulative and can build up over a day or days.
“High heat like this can pose a real threat to your health,” said Park Superintendent Mike Reynolds.
“In addition to not being able to cool down while riding due to the high air temperature, experiencing Death Valley by motorcycle in this heat is even more challenging with the heavy safety equipment required to reduce injuries in the event of an accident,” the statement said.
Rising temperatures didn’t deter Chris Kinsel, a Death Valley visitor who said it was “like Christmas Day to me” on a record-breaking day. Kinsel said he and his wife usually come to the park in the winter, when it’s still warm — but it doesn’t hurt to be in one of the hottest places on Earth in July.
“Death Valley in the summer has always been on my bucket list. My whole life, I’ve wanted to be out here in the summer,” said Kinsel, who visited the Badwater Basin area of Death Valley from Las Vegas.
Kinsel said he was going to the park’s visitor center to take a photo next to a digital sign showing the current temperature.
Crossing the Nevada desert, Natasha Ivory took four of her eight children to a water park at Mount Charleston, outside Las Vegas, which on Sunday set a record high of 119 F (48.3 C).
“They have a ball,” Ivory told Fox5 Vegas. “I want to rain too. It’s too hot not to.”
Jill Workman Anderson was also at Mount Charleston, taking her dog for a short hike and enjoying the view.
“We can look out and see the desert,” he said. “It’s also 30 degrees cooler than northwest Las Vegas, where we live.”
Triple-digit temperatures were common in Oregon, where several records were broken – including in Salem, on Sunday, a temperature of 103 F (39.4 C), surpassing the 99 F (37.2 C) mark set in 1960. Further east moist. Along the coast, temperatures above 100 degrees are widespread, although no extreme heat advisory is in effect for Sunday.
“Drink plenty of fluids, stay in an air-conditioned room, stay out of the sun, and check on relatives and neighbors,” read a weather service advisory for the Baltimore area. “Children and pets should never be left in a vehicle under any circumstances.”
A rare heat advisory was extended even to higher elevations including around Lake Tahoe, on the border of California and Nevada, with the weather service in Reno, Nevada, warning of “significant heat risk impacts, even in the mountains.”
“How hot are we talking? Well, high temperatures in the west (western Nevada and northern California) will not drop below 100 degrees (37.8 C) until next weekend,” the service posted online. “And unfortunately, there won’t be any overnight relief either.”
More extreme highs are in the near term forecast, including possibly 130 F (54.4 C) by midweek at Furnace Creek, California, in Death Valley. The hottest temperature officially recorded on Earth was 134 F (56.67 C) in July 1913 in Death Valley, although some experts dispute this measure and say that the real record is 130 F (54.4 C), which was recorded in July 2021.
Tracy Housley, originally from Manchester, England, said he decided to drive from his hotel in Las Vegas to Death Valley after hearing on the radio that the temperature could approach record levels.
“We just thought, let’s be there,” Housley said Sunday. “Let’s get some experience.”
In Arizona’s Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, there have been at least 13 heat-related deaths this year, along with more than 160 other suspected heat-related deaths that are still under investigation, according to a new report.
That doesn’t include the death last year of a 10-year-old boy in Phoenix who suffered a “heat-related medical event” while hiking with his family in South Mountain Park and Preserve, according to police.
In California, crews are working in hot conditions to fight several wildfires across the state.
In Santa Barbara County, northwest of Los Angeles, the growing Lake Fire has burned more than 25 square miles (66.5 square kilometers) of dry grass, brush and timber after it broke out on Friday. No curfew on Sundays. The fire is burning through mostly uninhabited forest, but some rural homes are under evacuation orders.
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This story has been edited to correct the spelling of Redding, California, and to correct that the motorcyclist died on Friday, not Sunday.
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Beck reported from Omaha, Nebraska. Associated Press videographer Ty O’Neil in Death Valley National Park, and writer Walter Berry in Phoenix contributed to this report.
