Arizona town records hottest March temperature in U.S. history
A small Arizona community broke the record for highest temperature ever recorded in March in the United States, reaching a scorching 110 degrees Thursday amid an early heat wave in the Southwest.
The temperature hit the high mark near Martinez Lake, a recreation community in southwestern Arizona, about 45 minutes north of Yuma, the National Weather Service said.
The March temperature record was first set in 1954 in Rio Grande, Texas, at 108 degrees. That record was matched during this heat wave Wednesday near North Shore, California, according to the weather service.
The news comes as California, Arizona and other Southwestern states have faced an unprecedented early heat wave. The heat is the result of a high-pressure system spinning across the West, causing “an expansive dome of unusually hot temperatures,” the weather service said.
The resulting temperatures are unprecedented.
More than 18 million Americans were under extreme heat warnings early Friday across Southern California, southern Nevada and much of Arizona. Millions more were under heat advisories.
Heat wave shatters daily, monthly records
The heat wave that set in earlier this week has already shattered daily high temperature records in cities throughout the Southwest and even some all-time March records.
Temperatures on Thursday in Phoenix soared to 105 degrees, breaking the record of 97 for the same date in 2017 and 25 degrees above normal, the weather service said. With an extreme heat warning in effect for metro Phoenix, temperatures jumped into the three-digit range by around 1 p.m. The first 105-degree day of the year, on average, usually comes May 22, the weather service posted on X.
Phoenix does not usually reach 100 degrees for the first time in a year until about May 10, though before this year, its earliest-recorded 100-degree day in a year was March 26, 1988.
In the Los Angeles region, daily records dating back decades have been broken since the heat wave began. In downtown LA, the high hit 98 degrees March 17, smashing the record of 94 set more than a century ago in 1914.
Cities in California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, Oregon, Idaho and Wyoming have broken all-time March records.