Wild Summer Heat Wave Smashes Records

heatwave-map-110712 — This image shows the NOAA North America Model temperature at about 6 feet for July 12.

(Image credit: NOAA.)

As the temperatures have risen across the United States this summer, weather records have fallen left and right.

The horrible July heat wave , lasting weeks in some cities, the entire month in others, has affected nearly 200 million people in the United States at some point.

Latest Videos From

Watch full video here:

Neither of those cities had it as bad as Morehead, Minn. On July 19, the heat index there a measure of humidity and temperature that indicates how hot the weather feels was 134 F (56.7 C), making it the hottest place on Earth for the day, said meteorologist Heidi Cullen, of Climate Central, in an interview on National Public Radio. (The National Weather Service later said this reading could be an anomaly due to the local weather station's location in a very wet field, and not representative of the entire town.)

Those records are not close to the worst heat wave of all time , however. That record is claimed by Marble Bar, Australia. From Oct. 31, 1923, to April 7, 1924 (summer in the Southern Hemisphere), the tiny town scorched with 160 consecutive days above 100 F, according Australia's Bureau of Meteorology. In the United States, Death Valley has come close to Marble Bar's record, with 154 consecutive days of at least 100 F, in 2001.

Brett Israel was a staff writer for Live Science with a focus on environmental issues. He holds a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry and molecular biology from The University of Georgia, a master’s degree in journalism from New York University, and has studied doctorate-level biochemistry at Emory University.