Tourists are now flocking to Death Valley to experience possible world record heat of 131 degrees

Tourists are now flocking to Death Valley to experience possible world record heat of 131 degrees.

The heat is expected to hit 131 degrees Fahrenheit on Sunday, setting a world record for the hottest temperature ever reliably recorded, according to the National Weather Service.

The chance of seeing all-time record heat is not stopping tourists from visiting one of the hottest plays on Earth – Death Valley National Park.

Park staff told FOX Weather that the site is surprisingly busy during the summer, with around 110,000 people that visit the desert location every July.

A thermometer outside the Furnace Creek Visitor Center is considered to be one of the park’s most popular attractions, where tourists stop to snap a photo next to their famous thermometer.

It predicts more than 100 heat records could fall over the weekend as it intensifies, piling onto the more than 1000 US high-temperature records broken in the last month.

Heat alerts have been expanded to and issued in places like California, which is amid its first extreme heatwave of the year.

Texas, Florida and Arizona, have already sweltered through dangerously hot temperatures in what is likely to be a record-breaking streak of consecutive 43C-plus days.

Even though temperatures might look impressive on the reading display and beat the all-time record of 134 degrees set in 1913, it is not an official weather station. 

“The sensor gets some radiant heat from the thermometer frame, so it consistently reads a few degrees warmer than the official, sheltered weather station. Just because this thermometer shows 130 °F doesn’t mean the actual temperature is that high,” a park ranger stated.

Even the low that night is projected to top the three-digit mark.

​Earlier this week, German tourist Daniel Jusehus snapped a photo of the famed thermometer at the visitor centre after challenging himself to a run in the sweltering heat.

​“I was really noticing, you know, I didn’t feel so hot, but my body was working really hard to cool myself,” said the avid runner whose photo showed the thermometer reading 48C degrees – well below the expected record.