As the Earth warms and we tend to set new temperature records with increasing regularity,

the lists of hottest days ever often include one anomalous-dick entry.

A day in 1859, when in Santa Barbara, California, a freakish hot wind ripped down from the canyons

and wrought destruction with temperatures as high as 133 degrees Fahrenheit.

Today we're going to look at the evidence for this apocryphal catastrophe and see how much scrutiny it can stand.

The Santa Barbara Samoom is up next on Skeptoid.

You're listening to Skeptoid. I'm Brian Dunning from Skeptoid.com.

The Santa Barbara Samoom of 1859.

Today we're going to go back more than a century and a half to a hot summer day on the central coast of California

to the town of Santa Barbara. June 17th, 1859 began as a summer day much like any other,

clear with plenty of warm sunshine, plus a cool breeze to make it just perfect.

But according to legend, something happened that wrought sudden death and destruction

from out of nowhere a wind with temperatures usually reserved for baking ovens blasted down from the hills,

killing animals and injuring people. It immediately set the country's highest recorded temperature.

They named it the Samoom after the hot Sahara wind of the same name.

But it turns out that data is hard to come by. Was the Santa Barbara Samoom a true freak of nature,

or perhaps merely a tall tale told to visitors?

Here's a snippet from the 1859 Samoom from the Insiders Guide to Santa Barbara.

Until 1934, Santa Barbara had a record high temperature on the United States Weather Bureau's books.

On June 17th, 1859, a Samoom scorching wind swept down from the northwest and the Mercury

soared to 133 degrees Fahrenheit, about 56 degrees Celsius.

Cattle dropped dead and birds fell from the sky. The record was topped when the Mercury hit

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