ARIZONA — ‘I guess we’re skipping spring and going straight to summer, again’: Sonel Telemaque, left, wipes sweat from his brow while installing a new air conditioning unit alongside Brian Hermosillo during record-breaking heat Thursday, in Tempe.
Tempe reached the highest March temperature recorded in the U.S. at 110 degrees F. The high temperature, part of a heat wave linked to a heat dome over the American West, was recorded just outside Martinez Lake, in the Yuma Desert, at the Arizona-California state line.
The heat dome is being caused by weakening jet-stream winds that contribute to high atmospheric pressure, which blocks weather systems from forming. It’s unclear if climate change makes these events more common, but the already rising temperatures are increasing their severity.