Washington breaks 1928 state heat record. It happened near Tri-Cities
It’s official.
The Hanford nuclear reservation is the hottest place in Washington, and not just because of its radioactive waste.
The National Weather Service announced Thursday that the new all time high temperature record for the state is 120 degrees, recorded at the Hanford site on June 29.
It beats the previous record of 118 set in Wahluke on July 24, 1928, and repeated at Ice Harbor Dam on Aug. 5, 1961.
Wahluke was across the Columbia River from what became the main plutonium production portion of the Hanford site in World War II.
Ice Harbor Dam is 12 miles east of Pasco on the Snake River.
The new record was set at Hanford south of the horn of the Columbia River in Benton County as it cuts through the Hanford nuclear reservation. It was near where the Hanford F Reactor once operated.
The new record was not declared until after the State Climate Extremes Committee met and considered 31 possible candidate sites for the new record before narrowing the focus to sites it believed had the best data.
Among sites considered were the Richland Airport, a Washington State University station near Red Mountain and nine places at Hanford.
The decision to declare the Hanford reading by F Reactor the official new record temperature for Washington was unanimous and a 28-page report was issued Feb. 3.
The Tri-Cities was enduring a heat wave in late June and on the day the Hanford record was set, the temperature reached 113 in Kennewick and 114 to the north in Pasco, according to the official records of the weather service.
Temperatures across much of Eastern Washington were well above 100 that day.
The heat wave was blamed for three deaths in Benton County from June 26 to July 3 and as many as 78 deaths in Washington state.
The intense heat was the result of a persistent ridge of high pressure, a widespread drought and intense sunlight, the weather service said.
This story was originally published February 11, 2022 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Washington breaks 1928 state heat record. It happened near Tri-Cities."