Public Health officials in Montreal said all six individuals in Montreal lived alone and all lived in an apartment with no air-conditioning, according to CTV News Canada.
CNN News is reporting that a Pennsylvania woman died Saturday after going into cardiac arrest while working in her garden, according to the Blair County coroner’s office.
And in Wilmington, New York, a 30-year-old man died after he collapsed on a mountain trail while running a race, according to the Essex County coroner said. When brought to the Emergency Room at a nearby hospital, the man’s internal body temperature was 108 degrees Fahrenheit (44.2 degrees Celsius), damaging his brain.
“When your brain becomes overheated like that, it can’t function anymore,” Essex County Coroner Frank Whitelaw said.
An additional two deaths in Kansas City, Missouri and also being investigated as being heat-related. According to the Kansas City Health Department, one case involves a man in his 80s, who died Monday, and the other case involves a woman in her 40s who died last week,
Extreme temperatures to last through Friday
Environment Canada is reporting that a warm and humid air mass over Southern Quebec will persist through Thursday. Humidex values will reach near 40 degrees Celsius. However, conditions will grow even more uncomfortable on Thursday with humidex values reaching 43 degrees Celsius (109 degrees Fahrenheit).
A word on Canada’s Humidex. Since 1965, Canada has used this humidity index to describe how hot the weather feels to the average person, The Humidex is the combined effect of the humidity and temperature.
Now, this is different from the Heat Index used in the U.S. The Heat Index or Humiture has been used in the U.S. since 1979. The Heat Index combines air temperature and relative humidity, in shaded areas, to derive a human-perceived equivalent temperature, as to how hot it would feel if the humidity were some other value in the shade. That’s where weather forecasters get the “feels like” phrase when announcing the Heat Index.
In the United States, excessive heat warnings and advisories are posted for much of New York and New Jersey, with heat index values up to 105. The heat index is what it actually feels like outside when you take into account the humidity and the high temperature.
Safe Kids Worldwide policy director Tony Green told The Hill that 18 children have already died this summer from being left in hot cars, and summer has just started. Green pointed out that it doesn’t take excessively hot temperatures to make a vehicle an oven, though.
“A car can heat up 106 degrees in 10 minutes, even if it’s cool, or moderate weather like 80 degrees. So it’s really important for parents to remember their kids, never leave them in the backseat of a car,” he said. And, a sobering statistic – On average, 37 children die each year in the U.S. as a result of being left in a hot car.
Bottom line? Call it the Humidex or the Heat Index – but when the weather services say the numbers are high, pay attention and heed the warnings, please.
