The joke is, in the Sonoran desert, even though it’s 114, it’s a dry heat.
The idea being that with very low humidity, amazingly, under 5 percent at times, the heat is easier to bear.
114, an average high for a few days each summer, is still bad enough, but given how few trees and other shelter there is in the desert, it’s almost always a sunny heat during the daytime, which adds another 7 to 10 degrees.
All plants and animals and people that live in the desert need to be built or adapt in some way to survive these extreme temperatures.
The hottest time of year is a few days before the summer Solstice on June 21, and a few weeks after that. Then the average daily temperature starts going down again, very very gradually.
A few weeks after the solstice is also the time when the summer monsoons really get going. The standard definition of monsoon season is the change in the wind, but in the desert, the important thing is that the monsoon usually brings moisture and finally rain from the Gulf of California and the Gulf of Mexico.
And of course, when the humidity goes up and the rains start, it’s still over 100 degrees in the desert. And it’s no longer a dry heat.
Desert Mysteries Weblog 