So I was talking to my mom yesterday to wish her a happy birthday (Happy birthday, Mom!), and she mentioned that Phoenix was going to set a record for the most days where the temperature has been 110 or higher. ‘Oh no’, I corrected her, ‘that doesn’t sound right. No place gets that hot.’

Wrong, Great White Shank. As Drudge reports, Mom wasn’t just hearing things – she’s absolutely right, as today (with an expected high of 110), Phoenix is expected to set a record for the most days where the temperature has hit 110 or higher – 29, in fact. As John Faherty of the Arizona Republic reports:

Today should be the day that allows us to tell our grandchildren that we were here in the summer of 2007.

Sometime late this afternoon, the temperature is expected to hit 110, and we will have set a record for misery: 29 days of at least 110 degrees in a year.

On Tuesday, we tied the record of 28 days, and the National Weather Service is predicting that we will get to 111 degrees today.

Well, it has been an unusually-hot summer, but then we had an unusually-cold winter last winter. I just don’t seem to feel it’s that bad – primarily because: a) I now work from home and don’t have to endure those miserably hot and draining commutes like my lovely wife does, and b) I’ve been in Massachusetts quite a bit this summer. I know it’s been damned hot because our pool temperature has stayed around the century mark for the past three weeks, and you can still go in it after dark and the waters feels cooler than the air. Unbelievable stuff, huh?

The last word goes to Tony Haffer, chief meterologist at the National Weather Service:

“This is an unusually hot spell,” Haffer said.

No sh*t, Sherlock.