Hot is normal, but...........

Death Valley records hottest month ever during recent Calif. heat wave

By Madilynne Medina

During a scorching heat wave that blasted California in July, Death Valley recorded its hottest month ever. 

According to the National Weather Service’s preliminary data, the average daily temperature for July was 108.5 degrees Fahrenheit, which beat the national park’s previous record of 108.1 degrees in 2018, Brian Planz, a meteorologist with the weather service, told SFGATE.

Temperatures hit 120 degrees or more for a majority of the month, Planz said, with the hottest day reaching 129 degrees on July 7. 

Despite the blistering temperatures, hundreds of visitors still flocked to the popular travel destination throughout the month. Some suffered from heat-related illnesses, including a motorcyclist who died after being hospitalized on July 7 and a woman who was rescued after she was found unconscious in the park on July 18.

Death Valley is known as one of the hottest places on the planet — it still holds the World Meteorological Organization’s global record for highest temperature at 134 degrees, which was recorded in 1913. Planz said the area is typically under a heat dome because of a combination of geography and the terrain.

“It's a desert with not a lot of precipitation, so that helps to keep the soil quite dry, which allows it to heat up more,” Planz said. He added that the park’s location below sea level creates prevents temperatures from cooling off.

July was also a sweltering month for the rest of the world. July 22 was the hottest day on record for the planet, according to WMO. The global daily average temperature on that day was approximately 17.15 degrees Celsius, or 62.87 degrees Fahrenheit.