The Death Valley expedition The Death Valley expedition The Death Valley expedition was an 1891 expedition to discover the geographic distributions of plants (phytogeography) and animals in California's Death Valley. It was the first of a series of expeditions funded by an 1890 act of the United States Congress. The expedition included biologists, naturalists, botanists, and zoologists. They produced valuable reports of historic significance in several fields, including ""Botany of the Death Valley Expedition"", "“The Death Valley Expedition: A Biological Survey of Parts of California, Nevada, Arizona, and Utah”", and ""Annotated List of the Reptiles and Batrachians Collected by the Death Valley Expedition in
Death Valley driest stretch on record with only of rain over a 40-month period. On June 30, 2013, during the 2013 extreme heat wave, the mercury reached 129 °F (54 °C) at Furnace Creek station, which is the all-time highest air temperature recorded for June. The mean annual temperature for Death Valley (Furnace Creek Weather Station) is with an average high of in December, in January, and in July. From 1934 to 1961, the weather station at Cow Creek recorded a mean annual temperature of . The longest number of consecutive days where temperatures reached or more was 205 from April to