Wednesday, July 20, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

We're at 117 and still cooking

Tuesday temperature ties mark for highest ever recorded here

Mario Talledo sweats profusely as he replaces an air conditioner Tuesday at a home in Las Vegas. Photo by John Locher. Click image for enlargement. Graphic by Mike Johnson. Anafe Morante wipes sweat from her face Tuesday in her home in Las Vegas. Morante's air conditioning unit broke. Las Vegas temperatures tied the record of 117 degrees on Tuesday. Photo by John Locher.

You know how when you open the oven while you're cooking and forget to move your head to the side and that blast of heat hits you in the face like a blowtorch with a bad attitude and you have to shield your eyes or else your eyelashes will melt?

That's exactly what it's been like outside.

We hit 117 degrees on Tuesday, tying the highest temperature ever recorded here. That was back on July 24, 1942, five years after record keeping began.

Not that you haven't noticed, but it's been so hot this week that records are falling faster than the popularity of that girl who came in third on American Idol, air conditioners are burning out quicker than Howard Dean's presidential aspirations did, and, sometimes, those who are particularly vulnerable to the heat are dying.

"You can swear here and there, but what's the use?" noted overworked air conditioner repairman Mario Talledo. "You just have to take it."

That 117-degree temperature Tuesday was recorded at 3:23 p.m. at McCarran International Airport, tying the 1942 record, which was set when the official gauge was at Nellis Air Force Base. The overnight low Tuesday dropped down to 95 degrees at 7:23 a.m., the highest low temperature ever recorded here. The previous record, 93 degrees, was set Sunday.

Tuesday's high broke other records, too.

It marked the fourth day in a row temperatures were at 115 or higher, and the fifth such day this month. Both are records, said National Weather Service meteorologist Andy Bailey.

We also set daily records on Sunday and Monday of 116. The record for Sunday, Monday and Tuesday had been 115.

And, Tuesday's 117-degree high with the 95-degree low made the average temperature 106 degrees, another record.

"We've got just an incredibly strong cover of high pressure overhead," Bailey said.

Couple that with what meteorologists call the "urban heat-island" effect and you get plain old ugliness.

Weather service meteorologist Larry Jensen said man-made structures such as roads, parking lots and other things made of steel, concrete and asphalt tend to retain heat during the day and don't cool off as quickly at night as rocks, dirt and bushes.

So progressively, each day around the temperature monitoring site at McCarran, the day starts out at a higher temperature. It affects the day's low temperature more so than the day's high temperature, Jensen said.

"You go back 30 years and there was nothing south of the airport per se," he said, referring to urban growth in that area.

It's been so bad this week that the weather service has issued an excessive heat warning through Thursday morning. The Clark County Air Quality Management District says ozone levels will be unhealthy through Thursday, flights are being canceled out at the airport, some students are being sent home from school, and the power company is scrambling to keep things going smoothly.

Meanwhile, Talledo, the air conditioner repairman, can hardly keep up with the demand for his time.

"We got 231 calls just between 2 p.m. Sunday and Monday morning," he said, wringing sweat out of a bandana while replacing an air conditioner outside a house in south Las Vegas. "We're just totally overwhelmed."

Talledo said the added revenue did not compensate for the grueling heat and 15-hour workdays.

"I'd like it to drop to 100 degrees to give all of us AC guys a break. We're dying out here," he said.

A lack of a functioning air conditioner appears to have contributed to the death of at least one local elderly man, Clark County coroner's officials said.

Police discovered 91-year-old Dave Davis in his apartment on Thursday near Martin Luther King and Lake Mead boulevards with the air conditioner blowing hot air, officials said. The temperature inside the D Street apartment was 114 degrees.

An autopsy ruled the primary cause of death as cardiomyopathy, but coroner's officials believe heat stress was a contributing factor.

Authorities are also investigating whether the heat played a role in two deaths on Monday.

Police discovered 78-year-old Gordon Hansen unconscious in a guest home Monday morning. An autopsy ruled that he died of natural causes, but officials said they are investigating whether the heat played a role.

Later Monday, 42-year-old David Cheney was found dead on D Street, near Martin Luther King and Bonanza Road. Police believe Cheney's death may be heat-related and that he may have been homeless, but autopsy results were unavailable Tuesday afternoon.

John Farrell, an outreach worker for Nevada Health Centers Inc., said most of the homeless seem to be coping with the heat like "seasoned survivors."

"People are doing good, staying in the shade and getting plenty of water," he said.

The heat wave continued to disrupt flight operations at McCarran International Airport, particularly regional jets headed to short-haul destinations. America West Airlines on Monday reported 15 cancellations on flights operated by Mesa Air Group, which flies smaller planes under the name America West Express.

"For certain planes, there is a hard limit, temperature-wise, related to the ability to safely fly the aircraft," said America West spokesman Carlo Bertolini. "Even if they took off empty, some temperatures are beyond the (planes') certified limits."

Bertolini could not say how many Tuesday flights were affected by the heat, though he estimated the day's cancellations would be similar to Monday's.

A pair of late afternoon United Airlines flights from Las Vegas to Palm Springs, Calif., were also canceled Tuesday due to weather complications, though airline representatives could not say if heat or Tuesday evening's expected thunderstorms in Southern California grounded its aircraft.

Otherwise, McCarran spokeswoman Elaine Sanchez said Tuesday's operations were largely normal at the airport.

Things were also largely normal at most of the 69 year-round elementary schools in Clark County, district spokesman Albert Jones said.

But some air conditioners failed at Variety School, a school for special needs children, he said. About 10 of the school's 118 students were sent home, he said.

He said school officials advised parents to either keep their children home today, or call first to check if the air conditioning has been fixed.

If it hasn't been fixed, students could be in a bind again today. The high is projected to be 113 degrees, tying a record set in 1959.

It should cool off a bit on Friday, to about 111 degrees, the weather service said.

And then we could be in for a big change, thanks to Hurricane Emily, which has been battering Mexico for the last couple of days.

Officials think the hurricane's remnants will head this way, pushing monsoonal weather toward Southern Nevada by Friday night or Saturday morning.

"We're going to transition pretty rapidly from dry heat to monsoons," said Bailey, the meteorologist.

Thunderstorms are likely in the area through the weekend, and temperatures should be in the low 100s. A flash flood watch might be issued, depending on where the storms hit.

The storms are likely to carry lightning, but because it'll be humid and not very windy, weather officials hope the wildfire danger won't be too high.

Either way, it'll be muggy and hot here instead of just hot.

"It might not feel any better because of the humidity," Bailey said.

Or, as put by weather service spokesman Brian Fuis: "Saturday could be ugly."

Review-Journal writers Chris Jones, Frank Curreri, Juliet Casey, Andrew Strickler, and Keith Rogers contributed to this report.