A scorching heat wave weeks before the start of summer is gripping the Deep South with several cities reporting the hottest temperatures ever recorded in May.
High temperatures were at least 100 degrees Monday in Florence and Columbia, South Carolina; Augusta, Georgia; and Jacksonville and Gainesville, Florida. It was the fourth day of temperatures in that range this week.
Savannah’s high of 102 degrees was a record for all of May and hotter than any day so far this year in Phoenix, as the same weather pattern bringing the unprecedented heat to the Southeast also has the desert southwest in the U.S. unusually cool.
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