Why Death Valley is the Hottest Place in the World | Death Valley Record Heat
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- Опубліковано 8 чер 2021
- We’ve all heard the stories of Death Valley’s extreme heat. Heat tourists, world record temperatures, and boiled eggs on the sidewalk. These are all part of the story of extreme heat in Death Valley. But why is Death Valley so hot?
What are the specific conditions that have allowed Death Valley to claim the title of “hottest place on Earth?” It has to do with geology, climate, and Death Valley’s unique plant community, all of which combine to make a hot place even hotter.
In this video, we’ll learn why Death Valley is so hot and the extreme circumstances which combine to make it so.
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Why does This channel only have 43 subs
We Need 1 million and more
Thank you for the high praise! The channel is still relatively new, but I'm excited for the community we're building here!
because it's a fairly NEW channel...calm down
Watching 10 months later and we're up to 26.5k :D
Maybe because the rest of the World uses Celsius. I don't know whats 100F is. Hot? But how hot? I know I could Google it, but that would be the very reason I thumbs down and move on from this Channel.
@@chrisklugh I have the opposite problem. It happens often enough I have googled C to F and place the resulting page on my browser bar bookmarks so that answer is never more than a click away.
100F is 212C
Little surprised that he didn't really give the real reason for Death Valley's high temperatures. High air density from low elevation. Dense air making for a very good insulator for convective energy. Radiant energy reaches Death Valley's floor, and cannot escape through convection. This is evidenced through the fact of how hot the ground temperature is there, as well as how in most desert regions, nights are typically very cold, where in Death Valley, they are not.
Exactly. It gets pretty cold at 3am and 99 during day. In Vegas it will be 115 and 100 at night. Nowhere near cold.
@@rafaeltorre1643 that's more do due to the urban heating effect
@@hahaureadmyname I grew up in a tiny town with a Main Street and 1 post office that took 6 minutes to drive from begging to end with 4 stop lights first. It’s not urban by any imagination. All farmland and you can see every star in the sky. It’s not because of anything to do with an urban effect when there’s nothing there. This happens even in a bigger city. But way colder in towns with only a main street. And if you live close to the Rio Grande you will be freezing at 3am in June July and August. Suffering without a jacket. At 3pm you’ll be sunburned without shade. And tank top and shorts pouring sweat at 99 degrees. It’s called high desert. It will be 100 out but take the tram 5000 feet and it’s cold. Boulder stacks you stick your hand in and it’s a freezer throwing out freezing air with patches of snow. They are called micro- climates. It’s not urban. Everything to do with elevation in a desert. There’s a desert in Hawaii and snow top mountain directly above it. Move to another island and it’s a tropical forest. Elevation and mountains alter the clouds and rain making every climate in the world.
Does 300-500 ft of atmosphere really make such a difference?
They should build giant solar powered refrigerators, with massive conveyor belts to spread ice cubes throughout Death Valley. (free idea)
NPS should get on this. Brilliant idea 😂
@@fantasyEXX He's obviously joking
@@fantasyEXX 🥴
Let's get.Elon on it right now!
You would have to talk the park service into it!
The last time I went to Death Valley was during a cold spell. The temperature in the valley didn't go above 70F that day. The temperature in the northern section of the park (outside of the valley) was below 20F that morning.
Death Valley is actually *SOAKING WET* compared to the very driest desert on Earth: the Atacama Desert in South America! In some areas of that desert, rain hasn't fallen *AT ALL* for the last 400+ years! However, because the Atacama Desert is over 7,000 feet above sea level, it is also a *CHILLY* desert, not a hot one.
Don't forget that the rain shadow also boots the temperature. The air cools at the wet adiabatic lapse rate as it gains elevation and drops precipitation, and warms at the dry adiabatic lapse rate as it loses elevation.
Rain isn't diabetic!
fascinating, just went down the rabbit hole to learn about adiabatic lapse rates. so basically wet air cools more slowly as its altitude changes, ~3°F/1000ft. then after the wet air blows its load from the decrease in pressure, the resulting dry air warms more quickly as it drops down the backside of the mountains, ~5.5°F/1000ft.
@@ColinCrunch You described it perfectly. This is the biggest effect on temperature that the rain effect has. The dry air comes down from the mountains on the lee side 30 degrees F warmer than it went up the mountains.
The air temperature also increases with pressure. A 15,000ft elevation difference means a large pressure increase and even lower humidity. 5° might not sound like much, but 115 is way more miserable than 110 and 120 is much worse than 115. At those temperatures there is no "wind chill", it is like standing in front of a furnace.
Yap. It is the energy you have to put into the water to vaporize it. When your water boil you have to put almost 10 times more energy into it to vaporize it than to bring it from zero degrees Celcius to boiling temperature. And that (latent) energy goes back into the dry air when the water condense again and falls down as rain...
Driving from Mt Whitney to bad water basin definitely is quite the trip
I believe people have walked it.
this was how I felt going from Joshua tree to big bear lake
My opinion is that Death Valley saw what people during the 50's-70's did to other national parks and it evolved to be so harsh it makes most people want to not be there for more than a few hours at best.
I've lived in death valley for a collective 8 months or so at all different parts of the valley and outside of it in panamint springs. One of my favorite places on earth
So it is like a giant convection oven. It is located at a latitude within the descending branch of the Hadley cell and this subsidence inhibits convection which helps keep the hot air trapped within the valley.
I've been there three times and it rained each time I was there. The second time a thunderstorm sent a flash flood over the highway. The highway crew bulldozed a path over the rockslide so traffic could get through. Third time I hiked to top of Telescope peak in July. It was around 70 degrees at the top and 120 in the valley. It rained the next day.
Could you perhaps add Celsius too in the future when talking about temperature. I'm sure I'm not the only non-American who watched this great video and didn't know what any of these numbers meant. If you've already made this change and my comment is irrelevant then I apologise.
Sorry Fahrenheit exclusivity club
yes, i agree
Haha, yes I'll keep that in mind. Thanks for the feedback!
@@NationalParkDiaries awesome, glad you listen! I appreciate it. I did look up the conversions, but it can be hard to keep track of them😅
American here who would also like C alongside F
I was there in early April and camped maybe 5 or 6 miles from Furnace Creek down a backcountry rd. It was low 90s during the day and quite pleasant at night with temps in the 60s and a breeze. I would definitely not camp in that spot during summer. The place is beautiful though, can't wait to go back.
Phoenix says hold my beer son
I've been to Phoenix in July and I never want to go back...
Nope
This was fire! Good explanations and visuals.
Thanks so much!
This is an excellent video! Quick and concise yet I was able to follow perfectly. Didn’t even know this was the (supposedly) hottest place on earth before.
Glad you liked it, thanks for watching!
Great video. Just subscribed. Can’t wait to watch your other videos.
Thanks so much, welcome to the community!
I first thought this channel had at least 200k subs judging by the quality of the content but I was surprised to realize that it only has 24k. Good work!
edit: some grammar fixed
Thanks so much! The channel keeps growing, so thanks for being here and supporting it!
I complement the NPD developers. That was enlightening to me and I have lived in Calif most of my life. Liked, Subscribed and Shared.
Thanks so much Daryl! I'm glad you enjoyed it and welcome to the community!
I have never visited Death Valley but plan to this November
Enjoy!
My grandfather lived there in the 40's - worked as a truck mechanic.
I love visiting Death Valley but I only go in the winter months. It's bad enough here in Tucson when it gets over 110...no need to crank it up past that.
I feel that. I've been to Phoenix exactly one time and it was in July. Never again.
It’s a wonderful place to visit! I saw the Saratoga Springs pupfish (an extremely rare fish in Death Valley) in January one year and had a wonderful time camping with my friends
The way you ended this video had me dying! 😆🤣
Hahaha, glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for watching!
@@NationalParkDiaries your channel is really really good! Keep up the great work!
@@Erikali26 Thank you and will do!
Great explanation.
Thank you, glad you found it helpful!
In the large polytunnels at work, we got up to 156'f one summer in the UK
I travel through Death Valley to Las Vegas from California. No cell phone reception so make sure your car is in good running condition. Complete isolation from civilization in between the millions in California and the lights of Las Vegas.
Great video!
Thanks Rob!
Inttwresting. I enjoyed the video. Still is fun to explore as long as we do it safely 😎👍✌️
For sure! Thanks for watching!
Great video
Thank you!
Nice video!
Thank you!
The way you describe the air circulation makes me think of a convection oven. A really big convection oven
Went for the 1st time this year. Loved it. Will be back in a few years. Beautiful! Didn't buy any gas there. Luckily:)
Ive personally seen a thermometer in Ft Sill OK during training that read 139 degrees. Commanders couldnt beleive it. They shut everything down for the day.
I live in Ridgecrest, CA. It is not the closest town to Death Valley but it is close. It gets hot here too.
I recently went on a 26 day backpacking trip through death valley.
The temperatures listed sound nearly the same as temperatures in Las Vegas. Months of 115f, 6 months of 90s. But Vegas has access to water.
'
wow beautifully floody on the desert...
big thank to the cloudy pour heavy thick rainy rainy on the dry desert sand / great floody...
keep continue more rainy rainy again and flood soon allday - allnight - everyday - everynight...
many animals / plants needs that water
I could only imagine your Air Conditioner failing all the time 😂
Been there twice, May was beautiful, so much plant growth. November, very pleasant
Nice to see you avoided it in the summer 😂
best explanation i have ever heard
Thanks so much!
Amazing how things are related.
Back in the 70s, Calif was goin thru an extreme drought, my middle school teacher told this story: When the Spanish missionaries asked the Native Americans what this land was called, the literal translation was, "hot oven"
Caliente = hot
Horno = oven
California...hot, oven-like
🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
I'd say Death Valley definitely lives up to that reputation!
@@NationalParkDiaries Try looking up who/what California was named for. clue: It ain’t “hot oven” 😀
@@samiam619 Queen Califia of the Amazons is what I heard.
@@petuniasevan Yeah, the same for me. Besides, the Indians wouldn’t have said it in Spanish…
That's not true at all the Spanish named California because it looked like the lands of the muslim caliphate. Literal translation is CALIFORNIA=land of the CALIPH
Great video, but in future please could you put temperatures in Celsius as well as Fahrenheit for everyone else outside of the US
This is an underrated channel.
Thanks so much!
Someone told me you get wind burns just driving around in that heat if car can't run ac and cool itself at same time.
I believe it. Phoenix in July was around 115F and even the wind was hot. I was expecting a nice breeze to be refreshing, but it only made things worse. Death Valley at 130F is probably so much worse 😩
It's normal in Saudi Arabia ,Kuwait , uae for temperature's to reach 50 deg Celsius, here we have car called GCC specs , not American or European specs , basically the radiator and condenser of cars is much bigger for all cars ford , Toyota,Honda , etc ..fyi
I think they said that last heat wave in the northwest beat the the death valley temp in in British columbia . At least air temperature.
How much would you have to reduce the height of the mountain ranges to reduce the rain shadow enough to allow rain?
You're kinda right, the Adirondack are larger by almost 2x, but considered a national landmark instead of a national park for whatever stupid reason
It got hotter after the Solar Mirror with Towers were installed. They maintain the area in High Pressure as the weather personnel would say. Preventing RAIN 🌧 I would see Las Vegas storms turn away as well as Arizona storms.
Also offshore tend to go to Northern California and often skip Washington and go to Vancouver Canada 🇨🇦 . Then the Jetstream drops to Colorado and down to sometimes Mexico
I am going to Death Valley this week. This video is very helpful
I'm glad I could help! Stay safe out there in the heat!
@@NationalParkDiaries keep up the hard work man. I can see your channel is growing fast
@@duonghoangsang1996 Will do! I'm excited to tell more stories here on the channel, I'm glad people are enjoying them!
Suggestion: when using temperature units, add a Celsius metric besides Fahrenheit 🥴
shout out to Death Valley for honesty in advertising in its name
Most beat the heat by visiting DV in the winter, only to find out how cold it is!
@@fantasyEXX People will still show up to DV, Vegas, and other desert locations unprepared with even a jacket and beanie because they just presume it's hot. Also, absolute temperature isn't the true measure of how cold it feels. The human body and metabolism acclimates to its given environment. Besides wind chill, the difference between day and night temperatures can be the main factor in perceived coldness. If it's 89F in the day, 49F at night feels cold. Even tho 49F is t-shirt weather back East where it could be freezing otherwise, it's not t shirt weather when it was 40F warmer just hours earlier.
Another awesome video! This video is perfectly timed too. It's been a hot summer out west with places like PNW experiencing Death Valley like temps.
Thank you! These heat waves weren't really happening when I was researching for this video, but it's definitely timely now.
@@fantasyEXX ^^^ exactly this. Central California is a hellhole with temperature but Death Valley is FAR worse. the PNW looks like a Chicago winter compared to either one
Hmmmm I was just in Ridgecrest inyoken olanca little lake lone pine independence and Big pine west of Death Valley a few weeks ago 75 mph winds what's up with that?
my old room used to reach 44°C
Greetings from the only computer outside the USA, celsius as well next time perhaps?
Lytton, Canada: "We're going to catch up soon." ☠️
Fahrenheit makes everyone outside the US cry.
could you plz put metric temps as well on the screen???? i have no reference point for 100F!?
Being born and raised in Alaska, I absolutely LOVE visiting Death Valley! … On UA-cam! 😅
could you please add in the celsius?
i have no idea how fahrenheit works
just like most people outside the states
Watching this in California summer of 2024 because it’s been 115 degrees here in Sonoma county
Stay safe out there!
Deepest valley in USA is owens valley with peaks of 12,000 to 14,000ft is right next to Death Valley.
I admirs the few plants that live there.
I live a 6.5 hour drive from death valley according to google. it has got up to at least 115F before where I live. it's absolutely unbearable. I would take 32 degrees over 100 degrees any day.
Think you chose the wrong state to live in then lol
@@cwill2127 lol the upper half of arizona is mountainous and much cooler. only the bottom half is super hot, and the phoenix area is right in then super hot part. but you are right haha. unfortunately I can't choose where I was born. both of my parents were born here too actually. my stepdad is in his 60s and he was born here too hahaha. and HIS parents are even still alive and they live here, but they live 2 hours away in the forest where its MUCH cooler, it even snows in the winter. but I am 30 so I couldhave left long ago. I like being close to my family though
Kuwait today 53 Celsius
Oh wow! Getting close to that record 🌡️
Sucks being in Kuwait, 52 degrees Fahrenheit on the California coast
Must be nice. Pretty far off from the rest of those Western temps!
04:00 Perhaps you should say that, as the water condenses out, the temperature of the air increases because of the latent energy that is in the vaporized water. (You need almost 10 times more energy to vaporize water than to heat it up from 0° Celsius to boiling temperature and that latent energy goes into the dry air when the water condense and falls as rain).
And the geology: in the 1970ies William Ryan and Kenneth Hsü discovered that the mediterrane sea was dry fallen a few miilion years ago. At that time the deepest parts of the mediterrane sea the ground was 5km below sea level. I guess that was the hottest place ever on this planet in the last few million years... 😱
I visited in late May and it was insane. Being from Texas I though "eh, it's just a hundred degrees. can't be that bad." I got out of my car and it felt exactly the same as sticking your face in front of the oven while opening it up and it's CONSTANT. That heat is no joke.
I thought the same thing about Phoenix when I visited from SC, but man was I wrong! I can't even imagine Death Valley lol
I love death Valley. Thanks
I got thirsty af watching this video.
Ive got an extreme question. What if a clear flat path was carved from Death Valley to the Pacific Ocean? Would Death Valley become much cooler perhaps turn into a green valley since Ocean Air can now flow directly to Death Valley? Is the mountain range the biggest factor for rain or cool air obstruction? I wish I could see a projection or animated model of this scenario.
That's an interesting thought exercise, but I honestly have no idea lol. Anyone with proper qualifications, feel free to weight in on this one!
How big of path?
@@xantastic6301 at least 5 miles wide or a 4 lane highway on each side
I would not like to get stranded there.
It's below sea level so we should dig a canal to fill it with ocean water.
Short answer. It’s a desert
Nice job once again. We subbed a few videos back.
Thank you, welcome to the community!
New record of 55 C in Death Valley
There’s many places in the world, especially the Middle East and North Africa that has reached higher than 134˚F but go unreported
Yea, temperature records seem to be pretty competitive. Places want to be "the hottest." But, officially, Death Valley still has the record!
@@NationalParkDiaries yep
I am from Phoenix and oh boy I tell ya the heat is killing me 🥵. Death Valley I surely will die.
I have been to Phoenix one time, in July. Never again... I'm from the South and thought I could handle it, but, man, Phoenix was next level lol
Why all the numbers are in Fahrenheit?
I think this video is great and all but if you do see this I must ask. Why do you say lower 48? It would be the contiguous 48 since makes a bit more sense if you don’t count Alaska and Hawaii. Plus I’m the same idea wouldn’t it be lower 49 since Hawaii is always below Alaska? I hear a lot of people saying it as of late and I just find it a bit odd when we already had a term for and now are saying lower
Damn freedom measurements 😅 I did not understand any of those temperatures lol
Earn your freedom then!
There's also the Lut Desert of Iran
What is 134 in Celsius?
Just stick around... you won't have to go far from home to experience heat like this.
I went there in February and it was HOT.
Can they build a big or multiple big heat pumps, or heat turbines? Stirling engines or something that converts that heat into energy!!!
A place so nice, they called it Death Valley.
So its not just low elevation. After all the Dead Sea is around 1400 feet below sea level while Death Valley is -282. Thanks for the info.
No problem, thanks for watching!
Plus I get lower altitude sickness if I go that low. And it’s not fun!
If you lived at the highest point in Michigan, you'd be less than 2300 ft/ 700 m vertical difference in death valley. Pretty unrealistic
Good video about Death Valley. However, you used clip art 🌵 of Saguaro cacti to represent the flora of Death Valley. This is an inaccurate representation as Saguaro do not grow at all in DV. Saguaro are native to the Sonoran desert only.
That's right, good eye. I mainly used that to illustrate my point and saguaro clip art is what you get when you search for generic cactus vectors lol. But yes, thanks for the feedback!
Wasn't the record reset within the last year.
The evaporation rate is 85in/216cm per year, but why it's isn't hotter than other areas, it's a sink below sealevel, averages 10% humidity near water, the salts from glacial melt ending, people lived at the hotel site since.
The Valley is a hundred miles long and develops a dome of hot air cloud viewable from far away, this a lid to cold air above doesn't prevent cool air along foothills both sides, if bicycle touring you hardly breathe riding the length yet a big climb out except due south, the Amargossa brings groundwater from ranges south, carries sheet_runoff flooding nowadays. Cyclists need a purifier to fill up from emergency water tanks to climb out east, the dirt goes through no water only for hard-core with maps, rarely traveled, fall best time of year.
Look for the dome cloud, cheers 🍺
Sounds like quite the cycle! Have fun and stay safe out there!
@@NationalParkDiaries These were long tours, they're satisfying not fun many places should be your expectations, the horizon stays 30mi/46km away, it can be disconcerting, 🧸
I can't even imagine a tour there! I just got back from one in Missouri not too long ago, and it was hot, but nothing like Death Valley. Plenty of corn though 😂
Ok. A moment of bitchiness. I HATE it when "desert climate" videos depict Seguaro cacti as the model of desert.
Seguaro only grow in the Sonoran Desert in Arizona.
Feel free to correct me if I am mistaken. Peace.
we should terraform it
What would happen if we let sea water come in to it ?
I have found memories of Badwater Basin... In TF2. I have never been to the US of A.
What is TF2?
@@malachiwhite356 It's a multiplayer game called Team Fortress 2, in which one of the better crafted maps is called badwater basin. It never occurred to me why the map had it's name.
@@ceshorty Okay, from Pennsylvania USA.
imagine how much solar energy could be produced there
Always go one December not hot
Part of me wants to go in the summer just to experience it lol
I'm sorry, but this is a very poor description. On down read about the adiabatic lapse rate and density of the (air pressure) are the major causes of the extreme heat in all low elevation locations in the American west (Las Vegas, Palm Springs, Valley of the Sun AZ). This also means it's the Geography or topography, not geology which is at play.