Phoenix ends 21-day streak of record October heat

Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico have had unseasonably warm fall temperatures 10 to 20 degrees above average. The heat in Phoenix has been particularly extreme.

The fall season is in full swing, but people across the Southwest could be forgiven for not noticing.

Parts of Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico have been gripped by an extraordinary heat wave, with unseasonably warm temperatures 10 to 20 degrees Fahrenheit above average stretching into mid-October. The heat is finally expected to break heading into the weekend, as a cold front brings cooler conditions.

Phoenix, in particular, has seemed locked in what feels like a never-ending summer. The city on Tuesday finally snapped a streak of 21 straight days of record-breaking daily high temperatures. From Sept. 24 to Monday, 19 new all-time highs were recorded, and two days tied previous records. All those temperatures were well into the triple digits.

“It’s hard to shock me with this kind of thing, but the weather in Phoenix has just been unbelievable,” said Jennifer Brady, a senior data analyst and research manager at Climate Central, a nonprofit research group headquartered in New Jersey. “When you see those numbers, you think it must be a typo. Even for those of us who follow climate change and know the trends, this is really extraordinary and disturbing.”

On Monday, Phoenix reached a record 103 F, according to the National Weather Service. A week before that, on Oct. 7, the city hit 110 degrees, and the day prior, the high was 113.

https://www.nbcnews.com/science/climate-change/phoenix-fall-heat-wave-records-october-rcna175349

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