More than 161 million people across the USA lived under heat warnings on Tuesday. Several people have died and authorities are warning about the heat.
In Las Vegas, USA, they have had temperatures above 45 degrees for five days in a row.
With Tuesday's high temperature – 48.3 degrees – a previous record from the summer of 2005 was also matched, with four days in a row with temperatures above 46.1 degrees (115 degrees Fahrenheit). And the heat is expected to continue until Friday.
Even by desert standards, the prolonged heatwave that the state of Nevada's largest city is experiencing is remarkable.
This is the most extreme heatwave measured in Las Vegas since 1937, says meteorologist John Adair at the American weather agency National Weather Service (NWS).
The heatwave that has gripped large parts of the USA has also led to heat records in, among other places, the state of Oregon. There, six people are estimated to have died due to the heat.
In Houston, Texas, high temperatures above 32 degrees with high humidity were also recorded on Tuesday. There, 1.7 million people are still without power after storm Beryl swept in over the Texas coast on Monday.
Houston resident Walter Perez and his wife, 3-year-old son, 3-week-old daughter, and father-in-law sought shelter from the heat in a church after a night he describes as "bad, bad, bad, bad".
We can handle the heat, but not the children, he says.
The weather agency describes the heat in Houston as potentially dangerous given the lack of electricity and air conditioning.
The heatwave in the USA is happening at the same time as the global temperature in June was a record high for the 13th month in a row. It was also the 12th month in a row that the world was 1.5 degrees warmer than pre-industrial times, according to the EU's climate service Copernicus.
