It it way too hot outside. We really need to be careful because the heat is apparently killing people. 13 people have died so far. Hit the jump for details.
Alex and Laura Garcia slogged back to their car after visiting the Baltimore Farmer’s Market Sunday afternoon, wiping sweat from their faces. After days of record-breaking, three-digit, inferno-esque heat, the Bolton Hill couple agreed that what typically passes for hot would feel like paradise.
“If it was 90, it’s sad to say but I’d feel like that would be pretty nice,” Alex Garcia said.
The region’s reward for making through 11-straight days of temperatures hovering near 100 degrees, is a full week in the 80s starting Monday, National Weather Service officials said Sunday.
In terms of the near-100-degree temperatures, we’re done with it,” said meteorologist Greg Schoor. “At worst we would approach 90 at end of the week.”
Relief also came Sunday for most of those in the Baltimore region who’ve been without power since the historic June 29 storm. The number of Baltimore Gas and Electric customers without power dipped below 100 for the first time in more than a week.
BGE officials said Sunday that about 86 customers remained without power and expected everyone’s electricity would be restored by day’s end.
Immediately after the intense “derecho” storm, as many as 738,000 BGE customers lost power, even as temperatures hovered in the three-digit range.
Even as officials worked over the weekend to restore power to those who lost it during the storm, more homes — several thousand — went dark because of stress on the system due to the extreme heat.
Officials said as they work to restore power to the region, they’ll give priority to those whose power has been out the longest. They asked people who still don’t have power to call BGE at 1-877-778-2222.
By mid-afternoon Sunday the temperature measured 99 degrees at Baltimore Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, but felt like 109.
People in sun hats roamed the Inner Harbor clutching water bottles like lifelines. They waited in line for brunch at the Blue Moon in Fells Point, crowding against the building to stay on the sidewalk’s shady side. Women shopping along Broadway wielded umbrellas to keep the sun off their face.
Baltimore’s high temperature was 104 degrees Saturday — a record for the date set hit at 4:16 p.m.
Thirteen people have died from the heat since July 2, according to state health officials. The most recent are a Pennsylvania man over 65 years old who died in Harford County Saturday, a Baltimore City man over 65 who died Sunday and a Wicomico County woman over 65 who also died Sunday.
National Weather Service officials said Sunday the heat will subside by the end of the day. That was due to a cold front moving in from the north and storms that were expected to sweet through the area.
The agency issued a severe thunderstorm watch for the Baltimore area through 10 p.m. Sunday night. By 2 p.m., storms were already spotted in Hagerstown and slowly working their way south and east.
“The cold front has already moved through,” Schoor said. “It’s not going to go anywhere over the next few days.”
Alex Williams of Fells Point ignored the heat to shoot hoops Sunday afternoon with a friend at an otherwise empty basketball court in Canton. Despite the bravado, he said he’d eagerly embrace this week’s promised mercury drop.
“It would feel like spring,” he said.
