Temperatures Hit Upper 90s Coast to Coast

Madeline, left, jumps up to catch a blast of water in the face from her owner, Sarah Bromberg, on Sunday, July 16, 2006, in New York. High temperatures in New York City peaked 90 degrees and the coming week is forecast for even warmer days. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig) (Seth Wenig - AP)

CHICAGO -- Temperatures soared into the upper 90s and higher Sunday from coast to coast, bringing out heat warnings, wilting athletes and driving others into the shade.

The choking heat was expected to continue for the next few days, and the hot air was moving toward the East Coast, meteorologists said.

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich said Sunday the state would make more than 130 office buildings available as cooling centers beginning Monday. Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty had ordered the National Guard out to help firefighters as temperatures even in the normally cool northern part of the state pushed 100 degrees amid very dry conditions.

The National Weather Service issued excessive heat warnings for Las Vegas, Chicago, St. Louis, Philadelphia, Tulsa, Okla., and parts of New Jersey, where thermometers made it into the 90s Sunday and were expected to reach 100 degrees Monday.

"I could use a pool out here," Doreen Venick, 36, said Sunday as she took shelter in the shade of a small tree with her two children and her sister at a children's festival in Brick, N.J.

Officials in Chicago, where a 1995 heat wave killed 700 people, opened 24-hour cooling centers and pleaded with people to check on elderly neighbors. No heat-related deaths were reported in the city by Sunday afternoon as temperatures approached 100 in parts of the state Sunday.

Organizers of Gay Games VII, a sporting event that has drawn about 12,000 gay and lesbian athletes to Chicago, said outdoor events were going ahead as planned with hydration stations, tents and medical teams. Two triathletes were treated for heat-related illnesses.

Chicago hit 94 by 3 p.m., but it didn't bother Frank Lee of Manoa, Hawaii, who was competing in the event's tennis matches and planned to drink plenty of water and eat bananas.

"Oh, I love it balmy," Lee said. "But maybe it's a little too hot."

A large high pressure area centered over much of the mountain states and extending into the Midwest was pumping hot air from Mexico across the desert Southwest and into the Midwest, said Rob Handel, a weather service meteorologist in Chicago.

Even the Colorado mountain town of Frazier, which sits at 8,550 feet and likes to claim that it is the nation's ice box, was in the upper 80s during the weekend.

"It's not supposed to be hot like this. Lately there have been evenings when you could sit outside at 10 p.m. without a coat. All my life I couldn't do that," said Connie Clayton, 58, a lifelong resident of Frazier.