In Phoenix, It Has Been 100-Plus for 100 Days in a Row

It's always hot this time of year in central Arizona, but 2024 is proving to be an endless summer with especially high temperatures in Phoenix. On Tuesday, the city hit its 100th straight day with at least 100 degree temperatures. That's long since shattered the record of 76 days in a row set back in 1993, according to data from the National Weather Service, the AP reports. "That is definitely an eye-catching number," NWS meteorologist Sean Benedict says. Benedict says long streaks of desert heat usually are broken up by rain, but the monsoon hasn't delivered much.

The persistent heat also got an early start, with the triple-digit days already piling up in May. The temperature hit 102 in Phoenix on May 27 and has made it to triple digits every day since. It doesn't look like a break is coming any time soon. Unseasonably high temperatures are expected this week across the western US, with an excessive heat warning forecast for Wednesday through Friday in Arizona cities including Phoenix and Lake Havasu City, as well as Las Vegas and other parts of Nevada, including Laughlin and Pahrump. The California desert communities of Palm Springs, Twentynine Palms, Needles and Barstow will also heat up.

Public health officials in Arizona's Maricopa County—where Phoenix is located, the hottest metro area in the US—say that as of Aug. 24 there had been 150 heat-related deaths confirmed so far this year, with another 443 under investigation. There were 645 heat-related deaths last year in the county of some 4.5 million people.

• Pretty much any way the data is parsed, 2024 marks another record-breaking summer of heat in Phoenix. It's been the hottest meteorological summer, which includes the months June, July. and August. And it's the same story throughout the western US, with several locations in California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico setting records or coming close.
• In Phoenix, there have been 37 nights this summer that didn't cool off below 90 degrees, another record. There have also been 54 days of 110 degree temperatures, which is just one day away from breaking last year's record of 55 days. That number could be broken later this week.

(Heat deaths in the US have risen sharply every year since 2016 and hit a record high last year.)