The New Hottest Days Ever!
If you thought that the Fourth of July was extra hot this year, you might be onto something. Both Monday (7/3/23) and Tuesday (7/4/23) broke the unofficial record for the hottest days ever recorded on Earth. The Coachella Valley was one of many regions which saw temperatures over 100°F. While 111°F in Palm Springs isn't exceptionally hot, we have been seeing more and more years with temperatures above the average of 108°F.
The Climate Change Institute at the University of Maine keeps records of the global daily average temperature going back to 1979. According to their records, Monday, July 3rd, 2023 was the first day in which the average global temperature surpassed 17°C (62.6°F). That record was short-lived, as Tuesday, July 4th, 2023 saw a global temperature of 17.18°C (62.9°F). The climatological average for both days was 16.2°C (61.2°F).
That makes July 4th, 2023 the hottest day in at least 44 years. Although the unofficial data only goes back to 1979, some experts believe that this may be the hottest day humans have experienced in several hundred years. The black line represents this year and the orange line represents 2022. We can see a general trend of rising average temperatures over the last few years.
We communicated with Dr. Michael Anderson, the California State Climatologist to get his thoughts on the record breaking heat. In an email response, Dr. Anderson said "What was once a generational extreme is becoming episodic and is expected to become commonplace in the years ahead. Heat waves in summer are no longer a question of if they will occur. The question now is where, how big and for how long."
