2001 Eastern North America Heat Wave
A rather cool and uneventful summer along the East Coast of the United States (with a more average heat pattern occurring in the Midwest/Great Lakes regions) changed abruptly when a ridge of high pressure centered off the coast of South Carolina strengthened in late July.
It began in early August for areas of the Midwest and western Great Lakes before spreading eastward and intensifying. It waned in most areas by the middle of the month, and although fairly short in duration compared with some other continental heat waves, it was very intense at its peak.
The high humidity and high temperatures led to major heat wave that overtook the major Northeast Megalopolis. Temperatures in Central Park, New York City reached a peak of 103 °F (39.4 °C). The temperature reached 105 °F (40.5 °C) in Newark, New Jersey.
Meanwhile in Ontario and Quebec, extreme temperatures were also reported daily during the first week of August. Ottawa recorded its second hottest day ever when the mercury approached 37 °C (98 °F) on August 9 and at the Toronto Airport it hit 38 °C (100 °F) on the same day, the hottest day there since 1955 with four straight days topping 35 °C (95 °F). Numerous records were shattered during the heatwave. Even in Nova Scotia, surrounded by the relatively cool waters of the Atlantic Ocean, temperatures still broke 35 °C in some locations. Glace Bay, which has a sub-Arctic climate reached a record breaking 35.5 °C on August 10.
At least four New Yorkers died of hyperthermia. Chicago had at least 21 deaths.
Read more about 2001 Eastern North America Heat Wave: The 2001 Heatwave in Popular Culture
Famous quotes containing the words eastern, north, america, heat and/or wave:
“Your Beauty, ripe, and calm, and fresh,
As Eastern Summers are,
Must now, forsaking Time and Flesh,
Add light to some small Star.”
—Sir William Davenant (1606–1668)
“Exporting Church employees to Latin America masks a universal and unconscious fear of a new Church. North and South American authorities, differently motivated but equally fearful, become accomplices in maintaining a clerical and irrelevant Church. Sacralizing employees and property, this Church becomes progressively more blind to the possibilities of sacralizing person and community.”
—Ivan Illich (b. 1926)
“In America the majority raises formidable barriers around the liberty of opinion; within these barriers an author may write what he pleases, but woe to him if he goes beyond them.”
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)
“For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe anything but the perception.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)
“I hear
the tide turning. Last
eager wave over-
taken and pulled back
by first wave of the ebb.”
—Denise Levertov (b. 1923)