NEW YORK (AP) — Extensive triple digit heat, broken temperature records and oppressive humidity piled up into a steaming mess as the heat dome crushing the Eastern half of the nation sizzled to what should be its worst Tuesday.
New York City’s John F. Kennedy Airport hit 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 Celsius) a little after noon, the first time since 2013. More than 150 million people woke up to heat warnings and forecasters at the National Weather Service expected dozens of places to tie or set new daily high temperature records Tuesday.
“Every East Coast state today from Maine to Florida has a chance of 100 degree actual temperature,” said private meteorologist Ryan Maue, a former National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chief scientist. “Getting Maine to 100 degrees is infrequent.”
Tuesday’s heat came on top of 39 new or tied heat records Monday. But just as dangerous as triple digit heat is the lack of cooling at night, driven by the humidity.
“You get the combination of the extreme heat and humidity but no relief,” said Jacob Asherman, a meteorologist at the weather’s service’s Weather Prediction Center. “It’s kind of been just everything stacked on top of itself…. It just speaks to how strong this heat wave is. This is a pretty, pretty extreme event.”
Asherman and Maue said Tuesday is the peak of the high pressure system that sits on top of the Mid-Atlantic and keeps the heat and humidity turned up several notches.
“It’s oppressing,” Maue said, adding that the dome is pushing the heat down.
The heat hit New York City as residents headed to the polls to vote in the city’s primary election. In the Queens neighborhood of Jackson Heights, Rekha Malhotra was handing out flyers in support of Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani while wearing a pink electric fan around their neck.
“It’s 90 bazillian degrees and here I am,” said Malhotra, an event DJ. “I could have been phone banking.”
“I have all the things — hat, ice and this,” Malhotra added, pulling out a commercial-grade spray bottle from their bag.
The heat and humidity during the day was compounded by humid nights where the temperatures don’t drop much and the human body and the electric bill don’t get a break to recover from the worst of the day, said Bernadette Woods Placky, chief meteorologist at Climate Central.
“The longer the heat lasts, the more it wears on the body, the more it wears on the health, the more it where’s under the energy bill,” Woods Placky said. “So one day is going to take a hit, but then when that combines with another day and night, and then another day at night, it just continues to add up.”
Amtrak reported delays Tuesday due to speed restrictions caused by the heat on routes that went through Washington, Philadelphia and New York.
And in New Hampshire, two 16-year-old hikers were rescued from a mountain in Jaffrey late Monday afternoon, overcome by the heat, the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department said. They were described as being in and out of consciousness and taken to a hospital.
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Associated Press writer Cedar Attanasio in New York contributed to this report.
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