Something is reflecting onto the sensors or equipment is failing. Send out a tech instead of a story. Just mark the reading as potentially erroneous on the website. Most humans will start to malfunction after a couple hours when exposed to temperatures beyond 130F/54C without compensating measures.

The article does not seem to say a whole lot except general doubt.

In particular, I don't see anything about whether there is a discrepancy in the heat index formula being used, as opposed to a bad sensor.

I tried the first formula I could google for heat index and relative humidity, and got a heat index of 178, rel. humidity of about 80% assuming 104 F temps and 97 F dewpoint.

Then I asked Bing Copilot and it emphatically said 80% humidity in 104 F weather is very plausible, but the corresponding heat index is not reasonable and my formula was likely outside its range of validity.

I looked at Copilot's reference, at https://www.noaa.gov/sites/default/files/2022-05/heatindex_c... and it appears that, no, 180 F is about the right index.

I wonder if Copilot made the same mistake I did, looking at the relative humidity scale as if it were the dew point and therefore off the scale...

So I'm wondering if people now sit around asking chatbots things and writing "articles" that launder the resulting slop.

I berated Copilot for its inconsistencies until it wrote this:

    Reassessing the AccuWeather Article

    AccuWeather’s claim that the 182°F heat index reading in Iran was likely due to instrument error hinges on skepticism about the dew point of 97°F. But:

    Nearby stations reported dew points in the 90s, which supports the plausibility.

    Dew point sensors can be finicky, but dismissing the reading outright without strong evidence seems premature.

    The NOAA chart confirms that 104°F + 97°F dew point = ~180°F heat index, so the math checks out.

    So yes—the simplest and most scientifically consistent conclusion is that the AccuWeather article was wrong to dismiss the reading. It may have been an extraordinary event, but not an impossible one.