A desert community in southwestern Arizona reached 110 degrees Fahrenheit on Thursday, surpassing the highest March temperature recorded in the United States, the National Weather Service said. The temperature was recorded just outside Martinez Lake in the Yuma Desert, on the Arizona-California border, as a winter heat wave pushed unusually high temperatures across parts of the Southwest. The NWS said the setting was about 145 miles (233 kilometers) west of Phoenix.
The previous U.S. March record had been 108 degrees Fahrenheit, set in Rio Grande City, Texas, in 1954 and later tied Wednesday by the tiny desert community of North Shore, California. On Thursday, the heat that broke the Arizona record also drove multiple California locations to 108 degrees Fahrenheit or higher, including Cathedral City near Palm Springs and the town of Thermal northeast of San Diego, where officials had forecasted 110 degrees Fahrenheit for Friday.
NWS also used the record-breaking temperatures to underscore how early in the season the heat arrived. “For some perspective, the average first 105-degree day of the year normally occurs on May 22nd,” the weather service said in a statement. It said the blistering wave of heat this week established record highs in dozens of locations, including Phoenix, San Diego, Los Angeles, Las Vegas and San Francisco.
In Thermal, resident Ruben Pantaleon said he continued working as heat settled over the area. Pantaleon, who used a squeegee to clean car windshields at an intersection, said he had “drank three of those so far” electrolyte drinks and told the Associated Press, “It’s the desert. It gets real hot. I’m not worried about it.”
The heat wave also moved into major metro areas with record-setting March highs. Phoenix reached 105 degrees Fahrenheit on Thursday, surpassing its previous record of 102 degrees set Wednesday, and the NWS said Wednesday marked the earliest day in March that temperatures climbed above 100 degrees in the city in nearly 40 years. The weather service said hiking trails around Phoenix were closed Thursday because of the risk of heat illness.
In Nevada, Las Vegas reached 95 degrees Fahrenheit on Thursday, beating the previous March record of 94 set Wednesday. The NWS said temperatures would remain 20 to 30 degrees above normal for March for the rest of the week in the Southwest before the mercury drops slightly starting Sunday, and it said many other cities in the region were expected to see their earliest 100-plus-degree day on record.