Temperature in New York City reaches 100 degrees as eastern US swelters
under extreme heat wave
[June 25, 2025]
By SETH BORENSTEIN
NEW YORK (AP) — Extensive triple digit heat, broken temperature records
and oppressive humidity piled up into a steaming mess as the heat dome
crushing the Eastern half of the nation sizzled to what should be its
worst Tuesday.
New York City’s John F. Kennedy Airport hit 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38
Celsius) a little after noon, the first time since 2013. Then Baltimore,
Philadelphia and Boston joined the 100 club. More than 150 million
people woke up to heat warnings and forecasters at the National Weather
Service expected dozens of places to tie or set new daily high
temperature records Tuesday. The dangerous heat sent people to the
hospital, delayed Amtrak trains and caused utilities to urge customers
to conserve power.
“Every East Coast state today from Maine to Florida has a chance of 100
degree actual temperature,” said private meteorologist Ryan Maue, a
former National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chief scientist.
Fryeburg, Maine, also hit 100, for the first time since 2011.
“Getting Maine to 100 degrees is infrequent,” Maue said.
Tuesday’s heat came on top of 39 new or tied heat records Monday. But
just as dangerous as triple digit heat is the lack of cooling at night,
driven by the humidity.
“You get the combination of the extreme heat and humidity but no
relief,” said Jacob Asherman, a meteorologist at NOAA’s Weather
Prediction Center. “It’s kind of been just everything stacked on top of
itself.... It just speaks to how strong this heat wave is. This is a
pretty, pretty extreme event.”
Asherman and Maue said Tuesday is the peak of the high pressure system
that sits on top of the Mid-Atlantic and keeps the heat and humidity
turned up several notches.
“Nobody is immune to the heat,” said Kimberly McMahon, the weather
service public services program manager who specializes in heat and
health.
Heat turns dangerous
Dozens attending outdoor high school graduation ceremonies in a northern
New Jersey city on Monday were treated for heat exhaustion and related
problems, including 16 taken to hospitals. The Paterson school district
held ceremonies in the morning and the afternoon as temperatures soared
to nearly 100 degrees. Officials halted the second ceremony about an
hour after it had started due to the heat.
And in New Hampshire, two 16-year-old hikers were rescued from a
mountain in Jaffrey late Monday afternoon, overcome by the heat, the New
Hampshire Fish and Game Department said. They were described as being in
and out of consciousness and taken to a hospital.
The heat hit New York City as residents headed to the polls for the
city’s primary election. In Queens, Rekha Malhotra was handing out
flyers in support of Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani while
wearing a pink electric fan around their neck.
“It’s 90 bazillian degrees and here I am,” said Malhotra. “I could have
been phone banking.”
“I have all the things — hat, ice and this,” Malhotra added, clutching a
commercial-grade spray bottle.
Utilities across the Midwest and East braced for the surge of extra
demand in the heat, at times asking people to cut back on air
conditioning when it felt like it was needed the most. In Memphis,
Tennessee, residents were asked to turn off unnecessary lights and
electronics, wait until nighttime to use dishwashers, washing machines
dryers, and raise thermostats a few degrees, if health allows.
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A fruit vendor pushes her cart on the Brooklyn Bridge during a heat
wave on Tuesday, June 24, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Olga Fedorova)
No relief at night
The heat and humidity during the day was compounded by humid nights
where the temperatures don’t drop much and the human body and the
electric bill don’t get a break to recover, said Bernadette Woods
Placky, chief meteorologist at Climate Central.
“The longer the heat lasts, the more it wears on the body, the more
it wears on the health,” Woods Placky said.
A good rule of thumb is the temperature has to get at least as low
as 75 degrees, if not lower, for people to recover, McMahon said.
That’s a lesson from the Pacific Northwest heat wave of 2021, when
many of the deaths were older people who lived at home and died at
night because it wasn’t getting cool enough, she said.
“Unlike other weather hazards, heat does have that compounding
effect on the human body. Your body tolerates less and less heat as
the days go on,” McMahon said.
Because warmer air from human-caused climate change holds more
moisture, making it more humid, summer nights are actually heating
up faster than summer days, Woods Placky said. That’s why the Dust
Bowl of the 1930s hit high temperatures similar to now, but it
wasn’t as warm overall because the nights cooled, she said.
The United States daytime summer high temperature has increased 2.2
degrees Fahrenheit since 1975, but the nighttime lowest temperature
is now on average 2.6 degrees higher, according to NOAA data. In
Baltimore, summer nights have warmed 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit since
1975, while summer days only 1.5 degrees, the data showed.
Marc Savenor, who owns Acme Ice and Dry Ice Company in Cambridge,
Massachusetts, struggled to keep up with phones ringing as the heat
wave overwhelmed ice machines and refrigerators, forcing customers
to seek emergency supplies.
“During the heat waves, my phone will ring at 3 in the morning till
11 at night,” Savenor said as workers shoveled dry ice into pellets.
“There’s no help for the weary here, because you’ve got to get it
when it’s coming in and everybody wants some.”
Air conditioners and fans have been flying off the shelves at Khan
Electronics in Queens, owner Mudassar Khan said.
“It started getting hot at night. People buy air conditioners when
they feel uncomfortable at night,” Khan said.
“Relief is coming,” Maue said, predicting that on Friday, New York
City probably won't even get into the 70s. “It'll feel incredible.”
___
Associated Press writers Cedar Attanasio in New York; Bruce
Shipkowski in Trenton, New Jersey; Adrian Sainz in Memphis,
Tennessee; Rodrigue Ngowi in Boston; and Patrick Whittle in
Portland, Maine, contributed.
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