Heatwave bakes parts of Death Valley in US

Desert dwellers in the western U.S. see temperatures topping 120 degrees (49 Celsius) as a reason to hunker down indoors and turn up the air conditioning.

But some tourists welcome it as a bucket-list opportunity to experience Death Valley — famously the hottest place in America.

Many will get their chance in the days ahead as a vicious heatwave bakes parts of Arizona, California and Nevada.

The mercury at Death Valley National Park reached 124 degrees (51 Celsius) on Sunday, and temperatures are expected to keep climbing through midweek as a dry, high-pressure system lingers over much of the Southwest.

Many places saw triple-digit temperatures on Sunday, and the heatwave was blamed for power outages in several areas in California.

"There's very few places on Earth to go to experience those temperatures, and Death Valley is one of those," said John Adair, a National Weather Service meteorologist.

Business booms as temperatures soar in July and August at Panamint Springs Resort, near the entrance of Death Valley National Park.

"When it's 120 to 125 (degrees), there's more customers than there ever is," said Mike Orozco, who works at the resort that includes a restaurant, gas station, camp sites and cabins.

Orozco said locals jokingly refer to the summer spike as "European season," when a flood of tourists from Germany, France, Sweden and other places arrive in Death Valley to experience heat unheard of in Europe.

"Some people consider being out there in those conditions a kind of suffering. Other people can get a kind of euphoria, or a reward, out of it," said Ed Carreon, a commercial photographer in Los Angeles who regularly visits the park and prefers the scorching summer months.

Almost all of inland California was predicted to simmer at above normal temperatures. In Los Angeles County the airports in neighboring Palmdale and Lancaster each matched a record high of 108 degrees (42 Celsius) set in 1985.

In Las Vegas, temperatures topped at 110 degrees (43 Celsius) on Sunday and could reach 117 degrees (47 Celsius) when the heatwave peaks by midweek. That would be the highest temperature ever recorded at McCarran International Airport since logging began in 1937.

The National Weather Service in Phoenix said the last time the temperature topped 120 was 1995, at 121 degrees. It could happen again on Tuesday.