The next time you toss and turn at night because of the heat, be thankful you weren't in Quriyat, Oman, on Tuesday night, where the low temperature there was a sultry 108.7 degrees.
According to weather records expert Maximiliano Herrera, this sets a new world record for the hottest nighttime temperature, the Weather Underground reported.
The high temperature there peaked at 121.6 degrees on Tuesday, falling about 2 degrees short of the all-time heat record for Oman of 123.4 degrees.
In fact, the temperature in Quriyat remained above 107.4 degrees for 51 straight hours.
"The hot weather has been caused by a strong upper-level ridge of high pressure that settled in over the Arabian Peninsula beginning on Sunday," noted Weather Underground meteorologist Jeff Masters. "Quriyat’s location on the coast of the Gulf of Oman in the Northern Indian Ocean means that humid marine air keeps the city from cooling off much at night."
Official world weather records are maintained by the World Meteorological Organization, but hottest nighttime temperature is not one of the records they keep.
The world's all-time hottest temperature is 134 degrees, set in Death Valley, Calif., on July 10, 1913.
This is one of many astonishing heat records that have been set recently, the Washington Post's Capital Weather Gang said. The Gang noted that it's "part and parcel of our warming planet where new, unprecedented heat milestones keep occurring."
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