OLD ORCHARD BEACH (AP) – Rick Wadowski figured out how to beat the heat Wednesday.
With the sun beating and the humidity hanging, Wadowski plopped himself down in the sand at the water’s edge, made himself comfortable and let the cool ocean waves roll over him.
As temperatures rose into the upper 90s and the heat index soared to more than 105, people across northern New England flocked to beaches and water parks and sought out air conditioning.
At Old Orchard Beach, thousands of people crowded the beach and waded and floated in the ocean for relief. Dressed in a swim suit, Wadowski sat in the water with friends and family members.
“I’m from Connecticut, and I know it’s a lot worse down there,” he said. “I’m beating the heat right here at the beach.”
Wednesday was the hottest day of the year, with temperatures hitting 97 degrees in Sanford and 94 in Portland. Along with the humidity, the heat index – a measure of how hot it really feels – hit 107 in Sanford and 105 in Portland, according to the National Weather Service.
In New Hampshire, Nashua hit 98 degrees with a heat index of 111 degrees, while Portsmouth felt like it was 110. In Vermont, the heat index hit 101 degrees in Burlington.
Derek MacDermott and his family come to Old Orchard Beach from Westford, Mass., every year to get away from the heat. But with the air feeling like a furnace, it was hard to escape the heat Wednesday.
Because their rental condominium didn’t have air conditioning, MacDermott took a short trip in his car Wednesday morning just for the air conditioning. He loaded up a cooler with bottled water and soda for the beach, and he was considering going to a movie later in the day to cool down.
“I just get in the water and stay cool and try to make it though the day,” he said.
As hot as it was on the beach, it was hotter in the kitchen at Rocco’s Pizza, a take-out on the town’s main strip. There, 15-year-old George Rosa was hit with 450-degree blasts whenever he opened the oven door.
Rosa tried in vain to keep cool by making regular visits to the eatery’s walk-in cooler or simply by walking around to create a breeze to cool his skin.
“And I dream of going swimming in the ocean,” he said.
In New Hampshire, a paving crew in Newington measured their work site at 103 degrees. When it gets that hot, frequent breaks inside an air-conditioned truck cab are understandable.
Fred McQuesten of Litchfield said he’s been working on road crews for more than 20 years, and this is the hottest summer he can remember.
Andy LePage, another crew member, said dealing with the heat is “mind over matter.” “Things just don’t happen as fast,” he said.
At Pierce Island Pool, the municipal pool in Portsmouth, Leslie Garrett said she isn’t bothered too much by the heat.
“It’s pretty unbearable out here, but I love it,” she said. “We’ll be scraping our windshields before you know it.”
At Plymouth State University, teams from New Hampshire and Vermont cut practices short in preparation for Saturday’s Shrine Maple Sugar Bowl, which pits the best just-graduated high school football players from the two states.
The heat also put a halt to dog races at Seabrook Greyhound Park in Seabrook, N.H. Dogs were being kept in air-conditioned kennels.
In the afternoon, the weather service put out warnings for thunderstorms across Vermont and New Hampshire with damaging winds and heavy rains. Forecasters expected thunderstorms across Maine Wednesday night.
The heat put an exclamation point on what has been a hot stretch of weather.
July was the second-warmest month on record for any month in Portland, said National Weather Service meteorologist Andy Pohl. Portland’s average minimum temperature in July was the warmest on record for any month.
But it’s the high dew points – a measurement of condensation in the air – that has caught forecasters’ attention.
“Nobody remembers the last time we had dew points in the mid-70s,” Pohl said.
AP-ES-08-02-06 1520EDT
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