The West is baking under intense heat, with the temperature at Las Vegas-McCarran International airport tying the official high of 117 degrees Friday. Meanwhile, more than for heat-related injuries and illness Friday at a music festival in Las Vegas, Nevada.
“It’s pretty intense,” said Clark County spokesman Eric Pappa. “We’re used to summer temperatures of 100, 105. But we’re beyond 100. It’s a scorcher.”
The temperature in Death Valley, California, may top 130 this weekend, inching near the world record high of 134 set there on July 10, 1913. The extreme heat wave is expected to reach from Reno, Nevada, to Idaho. And officials believe it will match the July 2005 heat wave that killed 17 people in the Las Vegas Valley.
Airlines are also monitoring the conditions because intense heat can make the air less dense, throwing flights off course. In 1990, triple-digit heat forced airlines to cancel operations at the Phoenix airport.