四川铁 FourRiverIron

It is interesting that not ONE of the following articles even mention Phoenix as having hot weather, despite the fact that the high (and the low) will probably be higher in Phoenix then any other city in the USA.

Of course in Phoenix it's a dry heat. Despite our high of 106° today, with our low humidity the heat index is only a measly 103°F.

The wave of intense heat that has enveloped much of the central part of the country for the past couple of weeks is moving east and temperatures are expected to top the 100-degree mark with hot, sticky weather Thursday in cities from Washington, D.C., to Charlotte, N.C.

Manhattan was in the path of the heat wave on Thursday, with temperatures expected to hit 101 degrees on Friday.

Temperatures will remain very hot and the humidity cloying for at least a few days. Boston is expected to reach 99 degrees on Friday, and Philadelphia, Newark and New York are forecast to hit 101 degrees.

Friday’s highs in Baltimore and Washington, D.C., are predicted to be 103 degrees. On Thursday, the National Weather Service issued an “excessive heat warning” for New York and all of northeast New Jersey starting at noon — a warning the service issues only when the combination of heat and humidity cause temperatures to feel at least 105 degrees.

The weather service also issued “excessive” heat watches for Massachusetts, North Carolina and Virginia, and said that “above normal” temperatures could last at least two more weeks over much of the eastern half of the United States.

The heat is not through with the central part of the country, either: Chicago is forecast to be 95 degrees on Thursday, and Cincinnati and St. Louis are expected to hit 99 degrees.

At least two dozen people have died of heat-related causes this week as the heat fixed itself over the Great Plains, transforming a large area of the nation’s midsection into a sauna.

On Tuesday, at least 17 states reached 100 degrees — a result of high pressures compressing and cooking the air.

States from Texas to Montana and the Dakotas had heat warnings or advisories in place, affecting more than 140 million Americans. So far, at least 22 deaths across the nation have been attributed to the heat wave, the National Weather Service reported.

In Chicago on Wednesday, the temperature had shot up to 99 degrees by midday, falling just short of the 101-degree record set in 1980, but the intense humidity made the city feel a lot more like 110 degrees. Even Bismarck, the capital of North Dakota, known for its often frigid conditions, saw temperatures soar into the 90s, reaching as high as 95 degrees. And in Minneapolis, the dew-point temperature, a measure of how moist and muggy the air feels, reached 82 degrees on Tuesday, breaking an all-time record.

Some forecasters said they were concerned the damage wrought by the heat could be greater than that of the severe heat wave that struck in the summer of 1995, when a hot-air mass settled over Chicago, claiming more than 700 lives and hospitalizing thousands over the course of three days.

In many states, health officials were urging residents to drink plenty of water, stay indoors or travel to cooling centers, and check on their elderly neighbors and relatives.

An earlier version of this article referred imprecisely to the number of states affected by high temperatures. Forty states have experienced temperatures into the 90s, with 17 of those states reaching the 100-degree mark; the 17 are not in addition to the 40 states, of course.

That slight breeze you may feel today is a front moving through the Chicago area that could bring some storms. But don't expect any real relief as the heat wave hits its fifth day.

An excessive heat warning from the National Weather Service remains in effect through 9 p.m. today, with temperatures in the middle to upper 90s and heat index readings expected to climb rapidly to over 100 degrees by late morning and 105 to 110 by early afternoon.

By 1 p.m., Chicago's official temperature was 96.1 degrees, with a heat index of 109.4 degrees, according to the weather service.

A weak front will move into the area this afternoon, bringing with it a 20 percent chance of thunderstorms, potentially severe.

"It's probably be a few degrees cooler than yesterday -- the breeze helps," said weather service meteorologist Amy Seeley.

Residents are also being urged to take precautions because of high pollution levels. An air pollution action day has been called today for Cook, DuPage, Grundy, Kane, Kendall, Lake, McHenry and Will counties.

On Wednesday, temperatures reached 100 degrees at Midway Airport and at Chicago's lakefront. But the official thermometer at O'Hare International Airport fell short of the 101-degree record set for the date in 1980. Readings of 100 degrees were also recorded at Wheeling, Lansing, Kankakee, Janesville, Wis., and for a second consecutive day at Rockford.

Power outages contributed to the discomfort. As of 5 a.m., according to Commonwealth Edison Co., 7,300 homes and businesses were without power across the metropolitan area due to equipment and transformer failure, 5,100 of those in Chicago.

For about two hours Wednesday night, about 2,000 customers in the city'sLakeview neighborhood were without electricity. The heat wave has public officials on alert, encouraging residents to stay out of the elements, to stay hydrated and to check on the elderly, who are especially at risk.

No heat-related deaths have yet been reported, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office. At least 80 deaths were attributed to the July 1999 heat wave. Four years earlier, another July heat wave was blamed for more than 700 deaths in Cook County.

CINCINNATI - Hot weather that has plagued the Plains for days spread eastward Thursday, blanketing several more states under a sizzling sun that made people sick, shut down summer schools and spurred cities to offer cooling centers and free swimming.

The temperature could soar to 101 in Toledo, Ohio - 2 degrees above a record set in 1930. Combined with the humidity, it could feel as hot as 115 across Ohio.

"It feels very sultry, very uncomfortable, and it's just very dangerous," said Jim Lott, lead forecaster for the National Weather Service office in Wilmington, Ohio.

Government forecasters issued excessive heat warnings for a huge section of the country, from Kansas to Massachusetts, while some southern states were under heat advisories.

Thursday shaped up as the hottest day of a steamy week in Ohio, with temperatures climbing to 97 in the southwestern part of the state. Farther east, the worst of the heat waited for Friday and the weekend.

Scattered deaths have been blamed on the heat nationwide. The Ohio Health Department said emergency room visits have been three or four times higher than usual this week, mainly due to heat exhaustion and heat stroke cases.

Thousands of homes and businesses in southern Michigan lost power Thursday morning as people cranked up air conditioner use. Ferndale Recreation Director Julie Hall said a cooling center in suburban Detroit took in numerous senior citizens after their nearby apartment lost electricity.

Lisa Blumentritt headed to the cooling center after spending Wednesday night without air conditioning in an apartment where it was "difficult to breathe."

Jackson, Mich.-based Consumers Energy asked its 1.8 million customers to try to reduce their electricity use by raising thermostats a few degrees, limiting opening of refrigerator doors and turning off unnecessary lights and appliances.

Baltimore, Annapolis and several other Maryland cities opened public cooling centers for folks to find relief. Allentown, Pa., waived fees at all public pools.

The temperature approached triple digits in Philadelphia and much of central and western New York. Philadelphia school officials sent students home early Thursday and canceled summer school for Friday.

In South Carolina, a heat index expected to spike Friday at 115 sent people to the beach and water parks.

"Traditionally what we see is that once July 4th comes, there's a tapering off as people get back from vacations and get ready to go back to school," said Phil Macchia, director of operations for Charleston County parks. "So far, we haven't seen much of that, and the weather is a big factor."

Some outdoor events also were canceled, but the annual Dayton Air Show said it would go on this weekend.

At the Warren County Fair in Lebanon, Ohio, rides were closed early Thursday afternoon. Fair officials pushed their opening time back to 4 p.m. because of the heat. Attendance is off this year, too, fair officials said.

"It's miserable," said Peggy Vanderpool, 52, working outside to park cars at the fair. "This is the worst year in the 10 years I've been coming here. Even the young kids are not handling it well."

She said workers took regular breaks, drank plenty of water and wrapped wet rags around their necks Thursday to earn their $9 an hour.

At the Ottawa County Fair near Toledo, 14-year-old Austin Schimming hosed down his beef cattle and put on his jeans and button-down shirt for the calf judging.

In Delaware, Ohio, a Harry Potter costume party fundraiser was moved from Friday to July 29. The party will benefit a group that seeks to preserve and promote downtown Delaware.

The statement from Main Street Delaware reported: "We blame nargles. (And the stifling heat, too)."

Usually, a 20 m.p.h. breeze on a summer day would provide a degree of refreshment, but this afternoon it was about as refreshing as a blast from a hot hair dryer.

And tomorrow it gets only more unpleasant, with the temperature expected to make a run at the record and reach 100 for the 60th time since Philadelphia began keeping track back in 1874. [ Of course if you are from Phoenix you say so what? Phoenix normally has 100 days a YEAR where it is 100°F or higher. But to be honest it's much hotter at 98°F with 98 percent humidity in Philly, then 122°F with no humidity in Phoenix. ]

The heat index - what it "feels like" - could go as high as 110 to 112, the National Weather Service said. To put that in perspective, the heat index today peaked at 107 on a day when the high, 98, came up shy of the record, 103, set in 1930.

The weather service's excessive-heat warning remains in effect until 8 p.m. Saturday all the way from the Poconos to the New Jersey and Delaware beaches.

Nothing in weather is a sure thing, but for three days now, the computer models have been seeing 100-degree readings for tomorrow in Philadelphia, said Jim Hayes, a meteorologist with the weather service office in Mount Holly. The official forecast is calling for 103, and the July 22 record is 100, set in 1957, 1955, and 1926.

He added that the air is unusually moist for readings that high. Water vapor tends to inhibit heating because some of the sun's energy is diverted to evaporating the water.

The breezes from the southwest probably are bringing some moisture off the Chesapeake Bay, said Alex Sosnowski, a meteorologist with Accu-Weather Inc.

It is possible that some dryer air will mix down from the mountains to the west and lower the discomfort levels this evening, he said. But it won't be much in the way of relief, and it's not going to last very long.

The weather service is warning of continued "dangerous" heat and sweltering nights in which temperatures will fight to get below 80.

During those unusually hot nights, the rowhouses inhabited by so many of the elderly and vulnerable don't get a chance to cool off, and they warm up quickly after the sun comes up. Thus, officials fear those conditions could lead to heat-related deaths. At least three have been reported in Philadelphia so far this year.

The ridge of high pressure that has the region in a pressure cooker isn't expected to start breaking down until late Saturday. After that the extreme heat backs off, but it stays quite warm, with daytime highs around 90 into next week.

"We're still anticipating a breakdown of this nasty heat," said Sosnowksi, "but it may be replaced by high humidity."

That would mean an enhanced chance of cooling thunderstorms, he noted, a time when the foliage could use it.

The Philadelphia Corporation for Aging in the meantime has activated its Heatline - 215-765-9040 - for anyone seeking information on coping with the heat. The information line will operate until midnight tonight, from 8:30 a.m. until midnight Friday, and 8:30 a.m. until 8 p.m. Saturday.

On Thursday, people in Miami-Dade and Broward may catch a break from the spell of near record high temperatures and afternoon rain that has gripped South Florida for several weeks.

But it will not be that big of a break as it will be another hot, sticky and humid day. Temperatures will remain in the lower to mid 90s, according to the National Weather Service in Miami.

The chance of rain will be between 20 to 30 percent, and a southeast to south windflow will carry the rain and thunderstorms away from metropolitan and coastal areas in South Florida and toward Lake Okeechobee in the west and Palm Beach County in the north.

A tropical wave developing near Cuba and the Bahamas is moving north. It may bring scattered showers in the evening that could last throughout the night.

Tropical Storms Bret and Cindy, both in the Atlantic, continued to move away from the U.S. coast and toward the northeast, posing no threat to South Florida.

Heat index hits 121 in D.C.

The heat wave enveloping the Eastern Seaboard brought punishing record temperatures to the Washington region Friday, sending scores of people to emergency rooms with heat-related illnesses and closing down outdoor events.

The combination of heat and humidity produced a heat index in Washington of 121 degrees, the highest since July 1980. The suffocating conditions stemmed from a sprawling, moist tropical air mass — described as a heat dome or heat bubble — that reached the region Thursday and is expected to remain into Sunday.

Beating the heat around the world: As high temperatures grip much of the Midwest and East Coast of America, people around the world are finding ways to cool off.

The blistering weather forced the cancellation of summer events and children’s activities; some people even steered clear of public pools because they provided little relief.

Local authorities had reported no heat-related deaths, but at least 25 people nationwide have died in the heat wave.

On Friday, Dulles International Airport hit 105 degrees, the hottest there ever; Baltimore-Washington International Marshall Airport’s mark of 106 was its second-hottest daily temperature ever; and Reagan National Airport’s reading of 102 was one degree shy of its record for the date.

Diane Woods, a management and program analyst with the Internal Revenue Service, drank five bottles of water Friday morning but still wound up in the emergency room. Woods, 57, of San Diego, was touring the Mall but had to lie on the grass because she was so dizzy. She found a nearby police officer who called an ambulance to pick her up.

“I felt terrible and scared. My throat was constricting. I was very frightened,” Woods said in a telephone interview as he received an intravenous drip at Georgetown University Hospital. “I thought because I had so, so much water, that would take care of it. But didn’t help at all.”

In response to the heat, Metro made an exception to its no-drinking policy and is permitting travelers to carry bottles of water on trains, buses and in stations until the system closes Sunday night.

From Baltimore to New England, the band of heat drove temperatures into the triple digits. The Weather Channel reported that New York’s Central Park was 104 degrees Friday afternoon, the hottest reading there since 1977, and that the 104-degree reading in Atlantic City, N.J., was the hottest there since 1969.

Other cities reached all-time highs: Hartford, Conn., notched 103 degrees; Newark reached 108; and Boston, which hit 103, had its hottest day since 1926.

Saturday’s temperatures were expected to remain unforgiving, hitting as high as 103, which would surpass the record for the date: 101 at National Airport. One reprieve Saturday might come in the form of scattered thunderstorms in the late afternoon or evening, which could cool things down.

Hospitals around the region admitted patients with a array of heat-related illnesses. At Inova Loudoun Hospital, Ron Waldrop, medical director of pediatrics, estimated that 10 to 20 people arrived both on Thursday and Friday with signs of dehydration or heat exhaustion. Many complained of stomach ailments.

“You get a few days in the low 90s, then suddenly it jumps around 100, and you get a lot more sick people,” Waldrop said. “This may be the hottest time I’ve seen in Loudoun.”

By 3 p.m. Friday, Georgetown University Hospital’s emergency room had admitted six people with heat sickness. Many were simply given a liter of fluids, but extremely hyperthermic patients — anyone with body temperatures exceeding 101 degrees — were placed under large fans and sprayed with water.

“Most patients have been drinking water and doing a good job, but it’s not been enough to compensate for the extreme heat,” said Sanjay Shewakramani, a Georgetown emergency physician. “Many of the patients have been elderly, doing yard work or are security officers working outside, and most had prolonged exposure to the heat for at least a half-hour. One person had to be admitted after passing out and striking their head on the ground.”

Throughout the Washington area, activities were scrubbed or moved indoors. The National Park Service canceled outdoor events scheduled between 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. as part of Friday’s program commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Civil War Battle of Bull Run in Manassas because of excessive heat, officials said.

In Northern Virginia, organizers of the Bluemont concert series, typically held outdoors, moved this weekend’s shows — in Fredericksburg, Leesburg, Middleburg and Warrenton — indoors.

In the District, the more than 100 children’s camps sponsored by the city’s Department of Parks and Recreation canceled all outdoors activities from Thursday through the weekend, said John Stokes, the department’s chief of staff.

The nonprofit DC SCORES program canceled all soccer activities for its elementary school students. The children, who attend a soccer and arts camp, went to dance classes, visited a museum or a watched movie instead.

Middle school students at a soccer camp were permitted to play, but with precautions. Counselors set up tents, furnished plenty of cold water and orange slices, and mandated frequent breaks to go inside. Several children with asthma stayed home.

Even that old reliable antidote to all-consuming heat — the pool — wasn’t the draw it usually is. By midafternoon Friday, attendance at the city’s 18 public pools dropped to about 1,000, down from 1,200, Stokes said.

In Rockville, Regina DeCarlo and Amy Macomber scuttled plans to hit the pool with their kids. They opted for a seemingly cooler activity for their children, ages 6 to 10: Rockville Town Center’s splash fountain. Their reasoning: Water that recycles through a fountain wouldn’t heat up as pools do, because pools are fully exposed to the sun.

As the children played in the spraying water, the moms let other parents know that it was fine for adults to take a dip.

In Fairfax, organizers of the Asian Festival said hot weather was not going to hinder their weekend-long event, held at George Mason University, which features sports, music and food from India, Thailand, China and the Philippines. It draws thousands.

“We’re Asian people, remember? We’re used to hot. But we also know not to overdo things and take breaks,” said Bing Branigin, an event spokeswoman. “We’re still going to eat spicy food.”

Staff writers Lori Aratani, Justin Jouvenal, Susan Kinzie, Michael Laris and Donna St. George contributed to this report.

It felt like Death Valley as stifling heat reached down on Friday and took the city in its clammy grip, transforming the streets and sidewalks into hot griddles and creating instant dripping wretchedness.

Thermometers reached triple digits, but that was not all — untreated sewage cascading into the rivers denied water activities to many New Yorkers at the moment they most craved them.

It was the wrong day for that to happen. It was the wrong day for almost anything involving motion. With precious little stir in the air, the temperature shot up to 104 degrees in Central Park at 2:10 p.m., eclipsing the record of 101 for July 22 set in 1957, and falling just 2 degrees shy of the city’s hottest day ever. It hit 108 in Newark, the hottest day on record there.

“It’s a steam bath,” Noah Goldstein, 67, said in the morning on a Manhattan street across from his broken-down cab. “In all my years in New York, I’ve never seen it get this hot this early.”

With the heat index making it seem like an impossible 112 degrees, this was like the flip side of the two-day blizzard that lashed the East Coast on Christmas weekend, choking the city with snow and tilting life well out of sync. That seemed like a very, very long time ago.

Instead of cantankerous winds, now there was fierce heat from a sun that would not relent. And the foremost place where many people wanted to go — the water — was off limits.

Because of a fire on Wednesday that forced the closing of one of the city’s biggest sewage treatment plants, the North River Wastewater Treatment Plant in Harlem, millions of gallons of untreated sewage were discharged from dozens of pipes into the Hudson and Harlem Rivers.

More than 100 workers labored to fix damaged engines in the treatment plant, working in 20-minute shifts because of the broiling heat. Among other things, they borrowed pumps from Ohio to replace those ruined by the fire. By Friday night, untreated sewage was no longer being emptied into the rivers.

Riverbank State Park, atop the sewage plant, was closed Thursday because it lost power. The park was reopened Friday afternoon, but its three pools remained closed.

Water recreation in the rivers was indefinitely discouraged, and pollution alerts were in effect for South, Midland and Cedar Grove Beaches on Staten Island and Sea Gate in Brooklyn.

Would-be kayakers gazed out at the water. Swimmers, unaware of the warnings, pulled their children from the surf when informed and rinsed them off. At Pier 66 in Chelsea, the students of Hudson River Community Sailing were grounded. “It’s definitely inconvenient,” said Andrew Schmidt, 28, an instructor.

So he improvised. He put together a slip-and-slide out of an old sail. Then he got some hoses and organized a water fight.

Consolidated Edison said power consumption by its customers had reached 13,189 megawatts, the highest level in the city’s history, smashing the record set on Aug. 2, 2006. There were scattered power failures, and the utility reduced voltage in parts of all five boroughs and Westchester County, including East Harlem, Flatbush in Brooklyn, Richmond Hill in Queens and the northeast Bronx, to avert more problems in its network. To help out, three wastewater plants were transferred to alternate forms of energy.

The Federal Aviation Administration said there were some flight delays because of thunderstorm activity around Chicago and south of New York.

In addition to keeping cooling centers available, the city converted fire hydrants into temporary drinking fountains and set out pet bowls. It directed that the city’s 54 pools be kept open until 8 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo ordered longer hours at swimming facilities in state parks.

The savage weather cooked the entire East Coast, with temperatures soaring past 100 degrees in Washington, Boston and Philadelphia, among other cities.

There were no reports of serious heat-related injuries or deaths in New York, but city officials advised people to take extra precautions and to go to cooling centers if they had no air-conditioning. Abnormal heat is expected to continue through Sunday.

Still, around the five boroughs, not everyone got the message to stay out of the water, or cared.

On Staten Island, Lou-Ann Capasso, 41, soaked at South Beach with her daughters, Ariel, 4, and Kelci, 2. She said no one had warned her. She adopted an aggressive New York posture. “The beach has been contaminated for years,” she said. “How much worse could it get?”

An open hydrant on Keap Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, gave relief to Louis Diaz on Friday. The temperature in Central Park reached 104 degrees. Newark had its highest reading ever, 108. More Photos »

Others, on advice from lifeguards, avoided the beckoning water. That is what Judith Crespo, 40, did. For her, it was one of those just-my-luck days. She had not been to the beach in years. Anthony Moutos, 26, still found a way to get wet. “I’m running back and forth to the sprinklers by the bathroom,” he said.

At Midland Beach, no sewage advisories were visible. People splashed in the soothing water. A reporter mentioned the issue to Vincent Nelson, 48, and he quickly summoned his daughter, Delilia, 5, from the water and told her to rinse off.

People did what they had to do. They sat through movies they did not really want to see. They walked around without shirts beneath umbrellas. Tony Gonzalez, a Manhattan doorman and restaurant repairman, had taken two showers by midday and planned on taking six or seven. Yana Galbshtein had no air-conditioning at her home in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, so she hopped on the subway. She was considering riding it all day.

The blistering heat wave began earlier in the week in the central United States and has been exceptional in its strength and breadth, breaking or tying July high-temperature marks in well over a thousand places. “One could say, ‘Oh, it’s summer, it’s late July, it’s hot,’ ” Christopher Vaccaro, a spokesman for the National Weather Service, said. “But this is different.”

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg addressed the discomfort by suggesting in a radio interview that people turn their thermostats to 79. That might feel warm, he said, but was better than losing electricity.

While people perspired, Jeffrey Watkins, 48, fished — off Midland Pier on Staten Island — even though city officials recommended that people not eat anything they caught. While he acknowledged that the heat was punishing, he made the point that it did not even compare with the Carolinas. The logic was not immediately comforting.

Mr. Watkins’s friend and fishing partner, Victor Arzano, 24, a telecommunications technician, had taken the day off from work.

“Think about when we had snow over the winter,” Mr. Arzano noted, emphasizing that you do not have to shovel heat.

Others on Staten Island made concessions to the heat. Bob Villanti, a retired bus driver, did a daily stroll along the boardwalk near Midland Beach. His usual objective is five miles. On Friday, he stopped at roughly three. He said the trick was to visualize. As he walked, he said, he imagined both winter and “tall glasses of Mojitos with a little extra mint.”

Mean while back in Phoenix, we have a cool 103°F forecast for today. (temperatures in the summer routinely hit 110°F around this time of year and when it gets hot it often hits 115°F or higher. The records is 122°F which is 50°C) Currently at 5:35 a.m. it's a cool 87°F

Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport
Lat: 33.43417 Lon: -112.05111 Elev: 1132
Last Update on 23 Jul 4:51 MST

Today: . Mostly sunny, with a high near 103. Calm wind becoming west between 5 and 8 mph.

Tonight: A 10 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Areas of blowing dust before 11pm. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 84. West southwest wind between 5 and 13 mph.

Sunday: . Mostly sunny, with a high near 105. Calm wind becoming west between 6 and 9 mph.

Sunday Night: A 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Areas of blowing dust before 11pm. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 84. West wind between 10 and 13 mph.

Monday: A 10 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Partly sunny, with a high near 106. South wind around 5 mph.

Monday Night: A 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 85.

Tuesday Night: A slight chance of showers and thunderstorms. Partly cloudy, with a low around 84.

Wednesday Night: A slight chance of showers and thunderstorms. Partly cloudy, with a low around 84.

Those looking for some kind of a break from the heat of the last week got it overnight -- a rainstorm that dropped temperatures into the low 70s. But like the heat wave that preceded it, this rainstorm was anything but ordinary.

According to ChicagoWeatherCenter.com, the total rainfall at O'Hare -- 6.91 inches as of about 6:50 a.m. -- is the largest single-day rainfall since records began in 1871. The highest previous daily total was 6.64 inches on Sept. 12, 2008. And more rain is on the way.

There were rainfall totals as high as 7 inches as the storm moved noisily through the Chicago area after midnight, resulting in flash flood warnings from the National Weather Service and enough flooded roads and highways to make life miserable for passengers headed to or from O'Hare International Airport and make a mess of traffic overnight and into Saturday morning.

The flash flood warning is in effect until 1:30 p.m. Saturday for most of the northern part of the region, though the rain did end up falling pretty much everywhere. The north side got the brunt of it, though, with O'Hare International airport getting 5.53 inches in two hours, according to ChicagoWeathercenter.com. Some other totals of note reported by the Weather Center: 6.41 inches in Glenview, 5.4 inches in Arlington Heights and 5.49 inches in Elk Grove Village.

At Little Village Academy on Chicago's West Side, the total was 7.84 inches, and the rain still hasn't left town for good. More rain is expect when some storms move in from the west.

The resulting flooding wreaked havoc with area roads. According to the police desk at O'Hare, some inbound roads heading to the airport were shut down, though some traffic is getting through. Tribune reporter Angie Leventis Lourgos reported this morning that she was able to get into the airport via I-190, though the traffic was very backed up, some roads did have standing water on them and some exits were closed.

Among other roads closed are the Edens Expressway at Tower Road, the Dan Ryan between I-57/Bishop Ford and 83rd Street and at 69th/67th street, the Eisenhower in both directions between Mannheim Road and Thorndale and at Austin Boulevard, and the Bishop Ford between Stony Island Avenue and the Dan Ryan.

Chicago Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford said that at the 83rd Street underpass on the Dan Ryan, there are six cars stalled in the middle of the road, with water up to the top of their doors. He also said there is about 3 feet of water on the CTA tracks there. Fire and police are at the scene, diverting traffic off the road onto side streets, some of which have no traffic lights because power is out.

Langford said that the water was so deep where the Bishop Ford meets I-57 that the Chicago Fire Department had to use a boat to rescue two truck drivers whose trucks were nearly submerged. Three trucks, two tankers and a box semi, were in water up to their mirrors, forcing the drivers to abandon ship. One swam out, but two climbed on top of their trucks, where they were picked up by the fire department boat.

And there are multiple instances of flooding on low-lying roads throughout the area.

The weather has interrupted service on three CTA lines -- on the Red Line between 95th and 79th streets, the Blue Line between O'Hare and Rosemont, and the Pink Line between 54th/Cermak and Pulaski. Shuttle buses are being used between those stops, according to CTA spokesman Lambrini Lukidis, who said that the shuttles running to O'Hare takes passengers as far as a remote parking lot. They're then transported to the terminals by airport services.

The storm also interrupted electrical service for some. About 7:30 a.m., ComEd reported that about 87,000 customers were without power: 45,000 north of the city, 30,000 in Chicago, 6,800 west of the city and 4,800 south of the city. Among areas affected were Grant Park -- where the absence of wokring traffic lights added to the day's traffic woes.

The forecast calls for more rain early today as another storm system moves in from the west. That will be followed by a partly cloudy afternoon with -- you guessed it -- temperatures in the 90s and high humidity.

四 川 铁 FourRiverIron

Heat Wave? Not in Phoenix

Heat index hits 121 in D.C.

四川铁 FourRiverIron