The Baltimore Sun
With a little luck, and a shower or two, Marylanders will probably begin to cool down this weekend after four days of broken heat records, stifling humidity, badly polluted air and disruptive storms.
Forecasters were predicting more showers and thunderstorms Friday evening, Saturday and Sunday, but weekend highs should hold in the upper 80s or low 90s. And by Monday, the region should awake to sunny skies, dry air and a struggle to break 80.
"Those couple of degrees are definitely going to make it feel better outside," said meteorologist Carrie Suffern at the National Weather Service's regional forecast office in Sterling, Va.
It will be a well-deserved break after another cruel, late-spring heat wave.
After temperatures reached a record-breaking 100 degrees at BWI-Marshall Airport on Thursday, a thunderstorm pummeled Baltimore and points south. It wreaked considerable damage on the area, with many trees down and power lines felled.
More than 53,000 people lost power, most of them in the city and in Anne Arundel and Baltimore counties, according to BGE. By 9 p.m., about 5,100 customers were still without power.
"There was significant wind, and whole trees and tree limbs fell down on our lines," said BGE spokesman Robert L. Gould.
Even as crews labored to repair the damage Friday, utility managers were preparing for additional damage as scattered storms moved into the region late in the day.
In Anne Arundel County on Thursday evening, police officers manned the intersection of Route 2 and Route 10, where the traffic signals had gone dark because of felled cables. Similar hazards impeded traffic at Solomons Island Road and Central Avenue in Edgewater and at Route 4 and Talbot Road in the southern part of the county.
Residents of North Baltimore reported large trees down on Charles Street near the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen, the Friends School and Loyola University.
On Interstate 95, the Fort McHenry Tunnel was up and running Friday, a day after heat damaged the roadway and forced the closure of two lanes, a member of the Maryland Transportation Authority's operations center said.
A spokeswoman for the authority, Teri Moss, said that two concrete slabs had risen 4 inches and buckled because of the heat. The closing came just as the evening rush hour was getting started Thursday and kept traffic at a near-standstill until well after 7 p.m. Repairs were completed shortly before 3 a.m. Friday.
Friday's temperatures reached 91 degrees at BWI, the fourth straight 90-plus day at the airport and the eighth so far this season. Two new daily records were set. It was 99 on Wednesday, beating the 97-degree mark set on the same date in 1999, and 100 on Thursday, topping the 98-degree record set in 1933.
Air pollution ginned up by heat, sunshine, engine exhaust and still air reached Code Red levels (unhealthy for all people) in the area Friday — the third straight day — surpassing the Code Orange (unhealthy for sensitive groups) that had been forecast.