A lot of crap does get thrown out there without context, and that definitely makes it hard to appropriately communicate when the true historic events happen.
I think that for the most part it makes sense to use the written historical record, which obviously varies by location and quality control but is easiest to understand.
I’ve personally communicated this coming heat wave in CT as “high end” or upper echelon if everything breaks toward overperforming, but critically, contextualizing what that means by showing the actual historical record for heat here. But I also lean in a lot more on heat index when talking about human impact.