By Murray Evans
The Associated Press
OKLAHOMA CITY — The heat wave that snapped last week for much of the nation shows no signs of letting up soon in parts of the South and Southeast, with heat advisories in effect Monday for Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi.
The high temperature in Oklahoma City on Sunday was 105 degrees, the eighth straight day and 12th time in the last 13 days that the state capital reached triple digits and the 24th time this year. The mercury was again to pass the 100-degree mark Monday, though there was a chance of thunderstorms.
The record for triple-digit temperature days in Oklahoma City is 50 days, set in 1980, National Weather Service meteorologist Patrick Burke said. In 2000, Oklahoma City reached 100 degrees 32 times, and it happened 25 times in 2001.
Between 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. CDT on Sunday, Emergency Medical Services Authority paramedics in the Tulsa area provided treatment to six people, ages 29 to 81, with symptoms of heat-related illness.
The severe heat in Oklahoma has been blamed for 16 deaths during the past month. Two other people died from heat-related causes before the current hot stretch.
Even though the rest of the nation has largely seen temperatures drop, the full extent of this summer’s killer heat wave has continued to be felt. More than 200 people have died across the nation since it began.
In New York, the medical examiner on Sunday certified 10 deaths as being caused by the heat wave, in addition to the 10 it had reported Friday. The toll could rise as additional autopsies are performed.
A man in his 80s and another in his 70s are the latest confirmed heat-related deaths in the Chicago area, bringing the total number blamed on the heat to at least 23, authorities said Sunday.
Philadelphia’s medical examiner’s office has listed nine more heat-related deaths in the city, doubling to 18 the toll of the eight-day hot spell.
In Connecticut, Gov. M. Jodi Rell on Sunday said she wants state utility regulators to review equipment and facilities after fires in underground utility vaults caused power failures in Stamford and Meriden last week.
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On the Net:
Weather Underground: http://www.wunderground.com
National Weather Service: http://iwin.nws.noaa.gov
Intellicast: http://www.intellicast.com