Death Valley Death Valley Death Valley is a desert valley located in Eastern California, in the northern Mojave Desert bordering the Great Basin Desert. It is one of the hottest places in the world at the height of summertime along with deserts in the Middle East. Death Valley's Badwater Basin is the point of the lowest elevation in North America, at below sea level. This point is east-southeast of Mount Whitney, the highest point in the contiguous United States with an elevation of 14,505 feet (4,421 m). Death Valley's Furnace Creek holds the record for the highest reliably recorded air temperature on
Death Valley Moving masses of super-heated air blow through the valley creating extremely high temperatures. The hottest air temperature ever recorded in Death Valley was on July 10, 1913, at Furnace Creek, which is the highest atmospheric temperature ever recorded on earth. During the heat wave that peaked with that record, five consecutive days reached or above. Some meteorologists dispute the accuracy of the 1913 temperature measurement. The highest surface temperature ever recorded in Death Valley was on July 15, 1972, at Furnace Creek, which is the highest ground surface temperature ever recorded on earth, as well as the only recorded surface