(Dodge City, KS) (westernkansasnews.com)

The record for the highest temperature ever recorded in Dodge City was tied on Tuesday where it reached 110-degrees at Dodge City Regional Airport.  The other two days that tied for the record also occurred in late June, one on June 20^th, 1998 and the other on June 26^th last year.  National Weather Service Meteorologist Larry Ruthi says the only saving grace with the extreme crop drying heat is the relative lack of humidity—hovering between 4-percent and 10-percent during the peak heat of the day.  Ruthi says that the other record broken in Dodge City this week is for the most consecutive days of daytime high temperatures reaching 107-degrees or above.  It was 109-degreees at both Garden City and Dodge City Regional Airports at 4 p.m. on Wednesday.

Ruthi says residents and visitors should hunker down as there is no indication the hot and dry weather pattern will diminish until mid-July, if then.  He adds that the current heat wave extends from the Rocky Mountains to east of the Mississippi River and is likely a contributing factor in regional fire activity.