ABC News
(NEW YORK) — After extreme temperatures hit the Midwest earlier this week, the hottest weather of the season is spreading across the eastern United States, with the focus on northeastern cities on Wednesday.
The actual temperature in Chicago reached 99 degrees on Tuesday, beating the city’s daily record of 97 degrees. The heat index – the perceived temperature with humidity – rose to a sweltering 115 degrees in Chicago on Tuesday.
As of Wednesday, 55 million people from Missouri to New York City are on heat alert.
The heat index is expected to reach 105 degrees in Philadelphia and Washington, DC, 102 degrees in Cincinnati, Ohio and Louisville, Kentucky, 104 degrees in Richmond, Virginia, 103 degrees in Nashville, Tennessee, and 96 degrees in New York City and Pittsburgh.
In the Northeast, the scorching temperatures will end on Thursday, but in the Ohio Valley and Tennessee Valley they will continue until Friday.
Record temperatures are possible in Nashville (Tennessee), Cincinnati and Raleigh (North Carolina) by the end of the week.
Hundreds of people die each year in the United States due to extreme heat, according to CDC WONDER, an online database, and scientists warn that the actual number of heat-related deaths is likely higher.
According to JAMA, a peer-reviewed medical journal of the American Medical Association, there were more heat-related deaths in the United States last year than ever before.
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