How 100 Degrees Does a Number on You
Even a healthy person is at risk in a heat wave.
That's relatively bearable compared with the triple-digit sizzlers of late June, when temperatures hit 119 in Phoenix. And this week, the 108-degree temperature in Las Vegas will still be high enough to cause second-degree burns for anyone attempting a barefoot walk across a parking lot.
These brutally high temperatures have spread beyond the nation's well-known summer ovens, with the heat wave—technically defined as three days in a row with temperatures topping 90 degrees—hitting traditionally cooler parts of the country, like the Northwest, and baking the northeast well into Canada.
From Arizona to Montana, from the Great Lakes to Maine, people are hearing heat advisories and warnings.
They do well to heed those warnings, says Claude Piantadosi, director of the Duke Center
