SOURCE: Pacific Standard Magazine
DATE: June 20, 2017
SNIP: In the Arizona desert, as far back as weather records go, it’s never been this hot for this long.
By early Monday afternoon, the temperature was 111 degrees in Tucson, the first in a forecasted series of a record-setting seven consecutive days with highs above 110, the longest streak in city history. (The previous record, should it fall, was six days in a row in 1994.)
In Phoenix, just to the north, temperatures were even hotter. Meteorologists there are expecting temperatures to run as high as 120 degrees on Tuesday and Wednesday, at the apex of the heat wave. The National Weather Service is calling the heat wave “extreme even by desert standards.”