It”s hot.
No news flash there. Sweltering heat is gripping half the nation. And the South is forecast to stay hotter than usual at least through the week.
With temperatures locally continuing to hover in the 90s, people are doing what they can to stay cool.
Louis Richardson Jr. of Columbus has tried to remain in the air conditioning as much as possible.
“I am a diabetic, so I can”t be in it anymore than absolutely necessary,” said Richardson, who was downtown Friday afternoon paying a bill.
Due to his medication, Richardson, 76, is easily dehydrated.
Inside, he said, is a good place for him, noting he was retreating to the A/C at that very moment.
Brenda Dixon, also of Columbus, has been drinking plenty of water, to fight dehydration.
“You try not to be out in (the heat), but you can”t help it,” said Dixon, 48, who was at the downtown post office, buying a money order.
Dixon is doing the right thing by drinking plenty of fluids. And the Columbus-Lowndes Emergency Management Agency suggests everyone do likewise.
“With this heat being the way it is, please use caution and … drink plenty of fluid when you”re out,” said Cindy Lawrence, director of CLEMA.
She also advises family, friends and neighbors to check on the elderly, who are very susceptible to heat-related illnesses such as heat stroke, which can lead to death quickly.
If temperatures get too extreme, Emergency Management will open a cooling center for people to get out of the heat.
Helping Hands, a United Way of Lowndes County agency, is conducting its annual fan drive. This year, the agency has gotten a flurry of calls early, requesting fans.
“We have a lot of people who have inadequate cooling systems,” said Jan Ballard, executive director of the United Way of Lowndes County. “We also have people who are on very fixed incomes, and they just have to watch every penny that they spend, so they”re cutting back on their air-conditioning usage.”
Fans can be dropped off for donation at the United Way of Lowndes County office, 501 Seventh St. N., in The Plaza, or at the Helping Hands of Columbus office, at 223 22nd St. N., in the former Cash Distributing building.
The National Weather Service in Jackson says temperatures in the 90s are “here for the next week.”
“It”s really going to stay how we are, with the highs in the afternoon getting into the 90s, just with isolated chances for thunderstorms throughout the area,” said Alan Campbell, a meteorologist with the NWS. “It”s kind of typical summer activity, just coming through late spring.”
Areas of high pressure areas have kept cold fronts from making it this far South. By next weekend, temperatures could drop into the lower 90s, Campbell said.
And while the early summer may seem abnormal, Campbell said it”s not unusual for the high temperatures to sneak in a little ahead of schedule.
“It has happened before. There”s not any type of particular anomaly or anything like that,” he said. “It is a little bit above average a little early, but it”s not anything unusual.”
Lowndes, Oktibbeha and Clay counties” emergency management offices had not reported any heat-related illnesses or deaths, as of Friday afternoon.
At Stanford, Noah S. Diffenbaugh and Martin Scherer analyzed global climate computer models and concluded that by mid-century, large areas of the world could face unprecedented heat. They said the coolest summers will be hotter than the hottest ones of the 1900s.
Global warming in recent years has been blamed on increasing concentrations of gases such as carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The permanent shift to extreme heat would occur first in the tropics and reach North America, South America and Eurasia by 2060, the scientist report in a paper that will be published in the journal Climatic Change Letters.
This story contains reporting from The Associated Press.
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