On July 17, the Earth may have witnessed the hottest midnight ever recorded, at a stifling 48.9°C (120°F). The potential new record was set in Death Valley, California, which is notorious for record-breaking temperatures.
This latest milestone was reached between the hours of 12 and 1 am, per recordings from Badwater basin weather station. While the readings are just provisional for now, if confirmed, they will mark the highest temperature ever recorded at this time.
Jeff Masters, a meteorologist at Yale Climate Connections, told New Scientist he has no doubt that this was the case.
It is not, however, the hottest overall nighttime temperature. This record belongs to Khasab Airport, Oman, where temperatures stayed above 44.2°C (111.6°F) all night between June 16 and 17, 2017. Again, this is not an official reading: the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) maintains official world weather records, but hottest nighttime temperature is not one of them.
Death Valley is no stranger to sweltering temperatures, being one of the hottest places on Earth. According to the WMO and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the world’s all-time highest temperature – 56.7°C (134°F) – was recorded here on July 10, 1913.
However, there is debate surrounding the validity of such recordings. In 2012, the WMO announced the long-standing record air temperature of 58°C (136.4°F), detected in Libya in 1922, was to be overruled after 90 years due to a recording error.
This latest potential climate record comes as the US is in the midst of a heatwave, which is scorching swathes of the South and Southwest, and is yet another milestone in an already record-breaking month. So far, July has seen the hottest day record repeatedly broken, as well as the hottest-ever week.
And things look to only be getting hotter, with experts predicting the month itself may be the hottest we’ve seen in 120,000 years.
[H/T: New Scientist]
