Dead Heat: Overturning the World's Hottest Temperature

With the official WMO announcement that the World's hottest temperature of 136.4° measured in Al Azizia, Libya is invalid, weather historian Christopher C. Burt recounts the investigation and evidence it took to overturn the record.

I raised questions concerning the hottest officially measured temperature in the world: the 58°C (136.4°F) reading from Al Azizia, Libya on September 13, 1922. Since that post, new information has come to my attention.

If, in fact, this record is not valid, then what might be the absolute maximum temperature measured on earth? There are just a handful of regions in the world that have the potential of recording temperatures of 130° or more.

One of the "sacred cows" of world weather extremes has been the widely reported "hottest temperature ever recorded on earth", a reading of 58°C (136.4°F) reported from Al Azizia, Libya on Sept. 13, 1922.

A strong upper-air high-pressure ridge has brought all-time record heat to much of Alaska the past few days. Temperatures peaked at 96°F at Talkeetna north of Anchorage on Monday June 17 with unofficial readings as high as 98°. Here is a brief review of the record-setting temperatures.

Southern Australia has endured an anomalous ‘Summer in March’ heat wave the first two weeks of this month akin to what the eastern two-thirds of the U.S. experienced in March 2012. Temperatures have averaged as much as 10°C (18°F) above normal.

On February 27, Abu Na’Ama, Sudan measured a temperature of 44.5°C (112.1°F), the warmest reliably measured temperature on record for the month of February anywhere in the northern hemisphere.