Hottest Day

July 10, 1913 — Hot as hell it was! At Furnace Creek Ranch in Death Valley, California, the mercury soared to 134°F (56.7°C) — the hottest air temperature ever reliably recorded on Earth.

For decades, this reading was considered the North American record, with a higher mark of 136.4°F registered in Libya in 1922. But in 2012, the World Meteorological Organization declared the Libyan measurement invalid, confirming Death Valley’s 1913 scorcher as the official world record.

Death Valley’s extremes help explain it: one of the lowest places on the planet at 282 feet below sea level, and among the driest with less than 2 inches of rain a year. On that July day, it truly lived up to its name.