What does D.C. have in common with desolate stretches of Africa’s Sahara, deserts in the Middle East and China’s Gobi Desert?
It has lots of hot air, of course.
So much hot air, in fact, that D.C. will find itself in the top 1.1 percent of the planet’s hottest places on Friday, when high temperatures will soar toward 105 degrees.
Only a few, far-flung places will be hotter.
This unusual statistic was approximated using raw weather model data and asking it the question: What is D.C.’s predicted high temperature, and which grid cells around the world are forecast to be hotter?
Of course, weather model forecasts aren’t perfect, but there is enough confidence in them to say that D.C. will be hotter than much of the globe.
Last week, parts of France were in a similar predicament: hotter than about 99 percent of the planet.
By Monday, D.C. will return to its regularly scheduled summer programming, when it will be only hotter than about 81 percent of the world.
Stay cool and safe out there.
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The post D.C. is about to be hotter than 99 percent of the world appeared first on Washington Post.
