Sizzling in the city

The Baltimore Sun

The stifling 100-degree heat yesterday was on everyone's lips, if not actually trickling off their foreheads and running down their backs.

As the sun beat down, demand for the electricity we need to churn our air conditioners and spin our fans soared.

Final numbers were not immediately available, but "we are actually forecasting we could reach, or possibly exceed, the peak record we set last year on Aug. 3, 2006," said BGE spokeswoman Linda Foy.

The heat and sunshine also combined with air pollution to push ozone levels northeast of Baltimore to "unhealthy" levels. And the meteorologists offered no real relief until Thursday.

"The Baltimore-Washington area is going to be in it a good deal longer than everyone else," said meteorologist Francis Kredensor, at the Penn State Weather Communications Group, in State College, Pa., where the air conditioning broke down yesterday.

"It's by no means a historic heat wave," he added. "But it's a good shot of hot air for a couple of days."

The thermometer at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport topped out at 97 degrees just before 4 p.m. yesterday. That beat Sunday's high of 94 degrees. Downtown it was hotter - 100 degrees outside the The Sun building and at the Maryland Science Center at 4:30 p.m., exceeding Sunday's peak of 97.

The Baltimore City Department of Health retained its Code Red Heat Alert, which will keep the city's nine cooling shelters open at least through today.

The air quality index reached unhealthy "red" levels yesterday afternoon in southern Harford County - which is downwind of Baltimore - as ozone levels climbed.

At the red level, active children and adults, or anyone with respiratory disease, should avoid prolonged outdoor exertion. Everyone else, especially children, should limit outdoor exertion.

In most of northeastern Maryland, ozone levels were rated "orange - unhealthy for sensitive groups." The forecast called for another "orange" day today.

Blame the heat on a "Bermuda high" lingering off the Atlantic coast, and on a related ridge of high pressure extending into the Gulf of Mexico and the southeastern United States, Kredensor said. Winds flowing around that high are streaming into our region.

"As that wind comes down the Appalachians, the air compresses ... and that causes the air to warm," he said. On top of that, the air aloft - at 5,000 to 10,000 feet - is quite warm, and the jet stream is flowing along the northern U.S. border, keeping cooler air bottled up in Canada.

On top of that, the sun is about as high as it gets at this time of year. So it's no wonder, Kredensor said, that "it's toasty."

Even so, the heat was not quite a record for the date. On the hottest July 9, in 1936, it was 103 degrees downtown. The next day, the mercury reached 107 degrees - still the city's record high for any date.

The last time the thermometer reached 100 degrees in downtown Baltimore was on Aug. 3 last year. It was 102 downtown and 100 at the airport.

That was the day BGE set a summertime record for power consumption, the same 7,198-megawatt mark that was under siege yesterday.

"We expect to be able to supply all our customers during this hot spell," BGE's Foy said.

The National Weather Service expects we'll stick in the mid-90s through tomorrow. Relief, such as it is, should arrive late tomorrow or Thursday, when a cold front will push through with some thunderstorms. Daytime temperatures will drop back into the 80s through the weekend.

The next three weeks of July are statistically the hottest of the year for Baltimore. The 30-year averages for daytime highs at BWI top out at 88 degrees from the 16th through the 25th of July. Overnight lows peak at 66.

From then on, as the days get shorter and the sun angles decline, average temperatures head downward until mid-January.

As hot as it's been for the last few days, humidity readings in the city have remained relatively low. Even as the The Sun's weather station at Calvert and Centre streets was recording 100 degrees yesterday, the humidity held at a relatively dry 33 percent. The dewpoint lingered at 66 degrees.

Things start to feel really sticky when summer dewpoints rise above 70 degrees.

The next few days will be worse, forecasters said. Higher humidity will mean more moisture in the air, making it more difficult for the body to cool itself by evaporating sweat from the skin.

While it made perfect sense to stay indoors yesterday, there were those who found ways to work outdoors and still be cool.

In Howard County, 40 accounting interns from the Baltimore office of RSM McGladrey marched into the woods just off U.S. 29 in Columbia to help clean the muddy Little Patuxent River between Lake Kittamaqundi and U.S. 29.

Standing in the brown water after digging eight corroded shopping carts and four bicycles from the river bottom, 22-year-old Corey Wittersheim, a rising senior at James Madison University, was smiling. "I like it ... It's a great way to get out of the office, and we're doing good," he said.

The day of hot physical labor is a partnership between the Patuxent Riverkeeper, a nonprofit environmental group, and the accounting and businesses services firm.

"This was the only day they could come, and it's not all that hot, really," said Lauren Webster, 25, a restoration coordinator for the river group. "If you stand in the water, it's a great cool-off."

frank.roylance@baltsun.com

Sun reporter Larry Carson contributed to this article.

Where to chill out

Baltimore and Baltimore County operate cooling centers to aid those suffering from the heat.

The following centers are to be open today in the city:

Eastern Community Action Center 1400 Orleans St.

Northern Community Action Center 5225 York Road

Northwest District Community Action Center 3314 Ayrdale Ave.

Southeast Community Action Center 3411 Bank St.

Southern Community Action Center 606 Cherry Hill Road (inside the shopping center, second floor)

Western District Community Action Center 1133 Pennsylvania Ave.

Oliver Senior Center 1700 Gay St.

Sandtown-Winchester Senior Center 1601 Baker St.

Waxter Center for Senior Citizens 1000 Cathedral St.

In Baltimore County, three centers are to be open today:

Essex Senior Center, 600 Dorsey Ave., 410-887-0267

Lansdowne Senior Center, 424 Third Ave., 410-887-1443

Parkville Senior Center, 8601 Harford Road, 410-887-5338

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