Record temperature in Death Valley. It may be the highest recorded in the world since 1931
A temperature of 54.4 degrees C (130 degrees F) was recorded last Sunday (August 16) in an area of depression in California’s Mojave Desert, known as Death Valley. If this is officially confirmed, it will mean that the world record for the highest temperature ever recorded in August has been broken.
The record was announced by the National Weather Service. According to a post on Twitter, the temperature in Death Valley reached 54.4 degrees Celsius on Sunday, August 16 at 3:41 p.m. The Washington Post states that temperatures usually rise in July, which is the hottest month in the Northern Hemisphere.
Randall Cerveny, chief rapporteur for extreme weather and climate phenomena at the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), said that everything indicates that the temperature in Death Valley was examined correctly. – I have just recommended that the WMO tentatively accept the observation. We will, of course, examine this issue in detail in the coming weeks, he said The Washington Post.
Death Valley is known for the highest temperature ever recorded on Earth – over 56.7 degrees Celsius (134 degrees F). This record was detected on July 10, 1913. However, scientists indicate that this measurement is very questionable. In 2016, extreme weather expert Christopher Burt demonstrated that this temperature is “essentially impossible from a meteorological point of view”. Most scientists believe that the readings of 53.8 degrees C (129 degrees F) recorded in Death Valley (June 30, 2013), Kuvet (2016) and Pakistan (2017) are the highest ever reliably measured in the world.
If Sunday’s temperature reading is confirmed, it will be the world’s highest temperature officially recorded since 1931 and the third highest since 1873. The two larger measurements include a disputed reading from Death Valley in 1913 and a reading from Kibili, Tunisia, on July 7, 1931 (55 degrees Celsius). According to Burt, however, there are readings from Tunisia “very doubtful” and “they have credibility problems”.