If there is a road to Hell it is I-40 into Needles, California. The combination of intense desert heat and Colorado river valley humidity streaming from the steaming Gulf of California makes it, arguably, the most miserably hot town in America in July and August. In this summer of record heat misery, Needles destroyed the all time world record for hot rain when 115°F rain briefly pelted the town on Monday before it quickly turned to steam and evaporated. Lightning from the storm set vegetation surviving along the riverside afire on both sides of the Colorado, completing the scene of Hell on earth.



A searing heat wave rare even for the Desert Southwest sent temperatures soaring to record levels on Monday, with Needles, California tying its record high for the date of 118°F (47.8°C). The temperature might have gone higher in Needles, but a thunderstorm rolled in at 3:20 pm, and by 3:56 pm PDT, rain began falling at a temperature of 115°F (46.1°C). Most of the rain evaporated, since the humidity was only 11%, and only a trace of precipitation was recorded in the rain gauge. Nevertheless, Monday's rain at 115°F in Needles sets a new world record for the hottest rain in world history. .... According to weather records researcher Maximiliano Herrera, the previous record for hottest rain, which I blogged about in June, was a rain shower at 109°F (43°C) observed in Mecca, Saudi Arabia on June 5, 2012 and in Marrakech, Morocco on July 10, 2010. The 11% humidity that accompanied Monday's rain shower at 115°F in Needles was the lowest humidity rain has ever occurred at anywhere on Earth in recorded history, according to Mr. Herrera.

Fires likely caused by lightning strikes and driven by strong winds continue to burn on both sides of the Colorado River near Needles. On the California side, as of 7 p.m. Monday, Aug. 13, about 60 acres of marshland has burned south of Jack Smith Memorial Park in Needles, said Tracey Martinez, spokeswoman for the San Bernardino County Fire Department, in a news release.

This is what climate change looks like in the desert southwest: Hell.

Lightning from the hot thunderstorm set a fire in marshland along the Colorado River in a park on the south side of Needles and 60 mile per hour winds spread the embers to the Arizona side of the Colorado starting a second fire.There is weather. There is summer. There is summer weather. But this is Hell on earth.