With the official start of summer still weeks away, a record-setting heatwave is cooking the south-western US, causing dangerous conditions far earlier than normal.
More than 34 million people were under heat alerts on Thursday afternoon, as warnings were issued from the southern tip of Texas across Arizona and Nevada, and up through the center of California to the northern part of the state.
The brutal conditions are expected to linger through Friday, according to the National Weather Service, as communities across the region brace for days of potentially life-threatening temperatures. Parts of California, the Great Basin and the south-west are forecast to break daily-high temperature records on Thursday and Friday, as Las Vegas, Nevada, and Phoenix, Arizona, hit 110F for the first time this year.