Phoenix Temperature Hits At Least 100 For 100th Straight Day

PHOENIX (AP) — Cam Ferguson gets to his spot on the street adjacent to Chase Field — home of Major League Baseball’s Arizona Diamondbacks — about four hours before first pitch to set up his usual display of cold water, sports drinks, peanuts and candy.

By game time, it’s about 103 degrees Fahrenheit (39.4 degrees Celsius) on this Labor Day afternoon in downtown Phoenix. Business is brisk.

“Two for five, but it’s eight inside!” shouts another vendor, hawking water bottles. “Plus, they’re having some problems with the air conditioning in there.”

It’s always hot this time of year in central Arizona, but 2024 is proving to be an endless summer with especially high temperatures in Phoenix. On Tuesday, the city hit its 100th straight day with at least 100 degree temperatures. That’s long since shattered the record of 76 days in a row set back in 1993, according to data from the National Weather Service.

“That is definitely an eye-catching number,” NWS meteorologist Sean Benedict said.

The temperature hit 102 F (38.9 degrees C) in Phoenix on May 27 and has made it to triple digits every day since.

Benedict said that long streaks of desert heat usually are broken up by rain, but the monsoon hasn’t delivered much. The persistent heat also got an early start, with the triple-digit days already piling up in May.

It doesn’t look like a break is coming any time soon.

Unseasonably high temperatures are expected this week across the entire U.S. Southwest, with an excessive heat warning forecast for Wednesday through Friday in Arizona cities including Phoenix and Lake Havasu City, as well as Las Vegas and other parts of Nevada, including Laughlin and Pahrump.

The California desert communities of Palm Springs, Twentynine Palms, Needles