Inside hottest city in US which reaches 43C - you can cook pizzas on car bonnets
Last year the city of Phoenix, Arizona, smashed previous heat records this year with a blistering run of 55 days at or above 110F (43.3C) smashing the previous previous record of 53 days set in 2020.
The scorched city experienced the hottest three months since record-keeping began in 1895 last year, with a daily average temperature of 97 F (36.1 C) in June, July and August.
While those kinds of temperatures may sound intolerable to many of us, people continue to flock to Maricopa County which contains Phoenix - making it the fourth most populous county in the US. Phoenix is the fifth-largest city despite the roasting average summer temperature of 93.7 (34.2 C) degrees - an average that has increased by 3.8 degrees since 1970.
READ MORE: Hottest city in US Phoenix set to smash another heat record surpassing 110 degrees
But how do the locals beat the heat? In fact people have lived in the Sonoran Desert for centuries - the Sinagua culture - a name that came from the Spanish, meaning “without water,” lived in homes built into the walls of cliffs in the Verde Valley north of Phoenix.
Gales, snow and rain to batter country today with 80mph wind gusts
Since the early twentieth century the invention of air conditioning allowed Phoenix to grow rapidly but as the farms and open desert at the city’s edge have been replaced by roads, parking lots and subdivisions this served to trap more heat and make the city even warmer. This urbanization has led to night time summer lows of 83 F average, even the city’s iconic saguaro cacti cannot cool off enough at night, causing them to drop their arms and fall down.
For residents who can’t or won’t leave in the summer, they have to adjust to the roasting temperatures. For many that means living at night. Runners and cyclists don headlamps and glow-in-the-dark gear while construction workers start their days at 4 a.m, using floodlights on their work sites.
A person drinks a bottle of water in "The Zone," a vast homeless encampment, during a record heat wave in Phoenix, Arizona (AFP via Getty Images)Pools get too hot to swim in so residents purchase giant ice blocks for pool parties. Pedestrians can often be seen using parasols to try and keep out of the blazing sun. Parking attendants who have to sit outside use swamp coolers meanwhile outdoor patios at bars and restaurants use fans and misters.
In deep summer even this is not enough and people scurry from air-conditioned houses, to air-conditioned cars, to air-conditioned offices, stores, schools, or camps. “It’s kind of the opposite of how other areas hibernate,” Sonia Singh, a spokeswoman for the Department of Public Health told the New Yorker. “We go outside in the winter and come inside during the summer.”
The temperatures inside cars left parked in the sun can reach 120 F. The Maricopa County Department of Emergency Management famously took to Twitter using the head of a car dash to cook cookies, pizzas, and roasted red pepper to show how hot a car’s interior can get. These light-hearted efforts were to remind people of a serious risk, leaving pets and children in hot cars.
A Phoenix Fire Department firefighter uses a hose line to extinguish apickup truck that caught fire during the heat wave (AFP via Getty Images)Although the cooler months have brought some blessed relief for the people of Phoenix this year, things are set to get worse.
A new climate analysis from the Washington Post shows that four billion people will be exposed to at least a month of extreme heat by 2030. In places like Phoenix with a hot, dry climate that could mean a month of days reaching 120 F or higher.
Over the last year the Maricopa County Office of the Medical Examiner has confirmed 579 heat-related deaths, with 56 still under investigation. This is a massive increase over the previous year’s 386 confirmed deaths and the grim figures look set to keep rising as the temperatures continue to climb.
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