Temps soar above 100 in East

July 7, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Associated Press

NEW YORK

The East Coast cooked under an unforgiving sun Tuesday as record-toppling temperatures soared to 100 or higher from Virginia to Massachusetts, utility companies cranked out power to cool the sweating masses, and the unlucky sought any oasis they could find.

The temperature hit 103 degrees in New York City and 102 in Philadelphia, breaking records for the day, both set in 1999. The temperature also soared past the century mark in Boston, Washington and Newark, N.J., and broke records in Providence, R.I., and Hartford, Conn.

In downtown Philadelphia, pedestrians and drivers appeared to move a little more slowly amid the high humidity, blazing sun and baking sidewalks.

After an extended Fourth of July weekend when temperatures inched into at least the 90s from Maine to Texas, the National Weather Service issued heat advisories until tonight for much of the Northeast and mid-Atlantic, including an excessive-heat warning for the Philadelphia area.

With people cranking up their air conditioning, energy officials predicted near-record demand for power. Utilities and regional electrical system operators cited ample generation capacity and expected no major blackouts, though, and just a smattering of power failures were reported.

The hot air is “sitting over the top of us, and it’s not really going to budge much for the next day or two,” said Brian Korty, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Camp Springs, Md. After that, he said, a system coming in off the Atlantic Ocean would bring in cooler weather.

Authorities in some places Tuesday began calling the hot stretch a heat wave, a phenomenon defined by at least three consecutive days of temperatures of 90 or above. Newark handily beat that threshold Tuesday, hitting at least 100 for the third day in a row.

It was so hot that even machines had to slow down. Transportation officials cut the speed of commuter trains in suburban Washington when the tracks got too hot because extreme heat can cause welded rails to bend under pressure.

In New York, 13 firefighters were treated at a hospital after suffering dehydration and exhaustion while battling a blaze in Queens. The 42-year-old lieutenant governor of Massachusetts spent Monday night in a hospital after marching in five parades in 90-degree heat.

Deaths blamed on the heat included a 92-year-old Philadelphia woman whose body was found Monday and a homeless woman found lying next to a car Sunday in suburban Detroit.