RENO, Nev. (AP) — The year's first heat wave is expected to grip the southwestern U.S. for at least another day after temperatures topped 100 degrees Fahrenheit from California to Arizona, breaking records across the region.
Though the official start of summer is still two weeks away, extreme heat warnings are in effect for roughly half of Arizona and Nevada, with the National Weather Service extending the warnings through Friday night.
Las Vegas has never experienced such sustained heat this time of year, and the warning has been extended through Saturday.
“Temperatures are expected to be 10 to 15 degrees above normal, with record high temperatures possible in some areas through Friday,” the National Weather Service in Las Vegas said in a statement. Temperatures will gradually cool over the weekend but remain above normal through early next week.
“It's so hot,” said Eleanor Wallace, 9, who was visiting Phoenix from northern Utah on Thursday with her mother, Megan Wallace, on a birthday hike.
The National Weather Service in Phoenix called the conditions “dangerously hot” after the temperature hit a new record of 45 degrees on Thursday, eclipsing the previous record of 44 degrees set in 2016.
No deaths or serious injuries due to heatstroke have been reported so far.
But by late afternoon, at a Phoenix rally for presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, 11 people had fallen ill with heat exhaustion and were taken to hospitals, where they were treated and released, fire officials said.
And in Las Vegas, the temperature set a new record of 43.8 degrees on Thursday, the earliest this year that it had reached 43.3 degrees or higher. The Clark County Fire Department said it had responded to at least 12 heatstroke calls since late Wednesday night, including nine in which patients required hospital treatment.
Several other locations in Arizona, California and Nevada also broke their records once or twice. Death Valley National Park, a desert 194 feet below sea level near the California-Nevada border, recorded a temperature of 50 degrees, beating the previous record of 49.4 degrees set in 1996. The park's record dates back to 1911.
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