OddAmerica

By Joe Holley
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 8, 2007; 3:54 PM

While severe storms flooded New York City subways, delayed flights and spawned a possible tornado in Brooklyn, Washington-area residents today continued to languish from oppressive heat and humidity. Temperatures hit 102 at Reagan National Airport at 1 p.m., breaking a nearly 80-year-old record by one degree.

A few clouds moved in just before 2 p.m., lowering the temperature a bit, but it was still in the high 90s all over the Washington metropolitan area, said National Weather Service meteorologist James E. Lee.

The National Weather Service has been predicting a possible high of 103 degrees, with a heat index of about 105.

Temperatures were recorded as soaring also at the other major area airports. At Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, the temperature hit 100, breaking the 1980 record of 99. At Dulles International Airport, it hit 99.

The August heat not only slowed down pedestrians trudging along baking downtown sidewalks, but also Metro trains below. Because excessive heat can bend steel rails, trains were being held to speeds of less than 45 miles per hour this afternoon, rather than a usual speed of 59 miles per hour. Metro trains also were being operated manually rather than automatically.

It is, of course, a Code Orange day, signifying unhealthy air quality.

The normal high for this date is 88 degrees. The record, 101, was set in 1930, during the hottest 30-day period in Washington history. Temperatures hit the century mark 10 times in 21 days.

The 1930 heat wave was the cause of what The Washington Post called “unusual happenings”:

Â· A woman living in an apartment on 10th Street NW shot and killed her husband when he refused to give her money for food. She blamed the heat. The morning she pulled the trigger, temperatures in the couple’s apartment had reached 110 degrees, she told police.

Â· Chickens that had been entered in an egg-laying contest at the University of Maryland Experiment Station were listless. Yields were disappointing.

Â· A 16-year-old Virginia hunter collapsed after being overcome by heat and shot himself in the head with a .22 caliber rifle. The ball knocked him out but only inflicted a scalp wound, The Post reported.

And 13-year-old Betty Allen Conner of 5535 30th Pl. NW had her own take on the oppressive heat of August 1930. In her poem, “Heat,” published by The Post on Aug. 3, 1930, she wrote:

” We call out, we ask:

‘Give us a winter day,

A frozen, icy day.’

But the sun,

The mighty, golden, burning sun,

Only laughs,

And, dizzy with its power,

Overwhelms the city and man.”

Temperatures will “cool down” to about 80 degrees tonight, the Weather Service said. Relief from the “mighty, golden, burning sun” could come toward the weekend, with a chance of rain tomorrow and Friday.

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