"It does seem like there are more extremes happening," Gillies said.

"Is the trend going to continue? ... You want a longer observational period."

Henriquez told the Deseret Morning News that the National Climatic Data Center gathered information used in the report from 250 weather stations across the country.

Asked who performed the analysis, he said, "The analysis was put together by advocates in our office."

Henriquez said he could not answer a question about the adequacy of the period covered by the Utah figures.

"We just want to point out with the report in general that, even though you can't point to one heat wave as caused by global warming ... that global warming sort of stacks the deck for having these heat waves and inclement weather."

---

E-mail: bau@desnews.com