Temps hit 90 for 4th time in ’14

Humidity puts heat index at 94 as area swelters

Aramark employee Mark Hupp laughs as University of Toledo mascot Rocky the Rocket tries to stick his head into an ice cream freezer to cool off. Mr. Hupp was passing out ice cream Tuesday near the Student Union as temperatures hit 90 for the first time this month and the fourth time this year.

THE BLADE/ANDY MORRISON
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Aramark employee Mark Hupp laughs as University of Toledo mascot Rocky the Rocket tries to stick his head into an ice cream freezer to cool off. Mr. Hupp was passing out ice cream Tuesday near the Student Union as temperatures hit 90 for the first time this month and the fourth time this year.

Jeremiah Bailey of Toledo covers his head with a towel in an attempt to block the heat while waiting for a bus along Secor Road. Forecasts for the rest of the week call for highs ranging from the upper 70s to mid 80s.

What a hottie, a summer flirtation as such.

Certainly not a heat wave, more of a flutter, a tease of what we’ve been waiting for.

Finally, a chance to complain about the heat.

“I hate it. It’s too hot,” Cheryl Schwartz, an employee of the Lucas County facilities department, said Tuesday as she weeded a flower bed near the county courthouse.

Up until the last couple days, the summer weather has been pleasantly cool, she said.

“That’s been good for me,” she said, wiping sweat from her eyes and forehead with the sleeve of her blue shirt. “I like it cooler. We’ve been spoiled. It stinks so bad the kids go back to school and it gets so hot. I don’t think most of the schools have air conditioning, maybe the new ones.”

With temperatures reaching 90 at Toledo Express Airport Tuesday afternoon for the first time this month and just the fourth time this year, while steamy humidity took the heat index as high as 94, northwest Ohio got a true blast of summer less than a week before the season’s unofficial end on Labor Day.

Downtown, pedestrians walked away from the sunny side of the streets, hugging shady areas along building edges instead.

Lon Lutz of West Toledo stood in the shade along Adams Street at midafternoon. He knows how to change a flat tire on his van, but on a hot day, he’s happy to have the services of AAA.

The sudden summer sizzle? “I don’t mind it for a couple of minutes,” Mr. Lutz, an attorney, said. The cooler weather of summer has had at least one plus.

“My air conditioning bill is lower,” he said.

The heat turned cool-weather talk into a hotbed of chatter.

“It’s warm today,” said Joel Miller, executive director of the Henry County Chamber of Commerce. “It hasn’t been this hot for most of the summer. It’s the first real warm and sticky weather. ... Suddenly, it is warm and humid. We are not equipped for it.”

More than a few folks point to a cool summer as indicator for another horrific winter.

They check out the Farmers’ Almanac and check in on woe-is-me posts on social media, and bam, another bad winter is in the wind. It’s as though, Mr. Miller said, “it is going to be all polar-vortexy again.”

The Farmers’ Almanac correctly predicted the past won’t-it-ever-end winter, and the publication’s editors forecast more of the same in the 2014-15 season.

For now, don’t sweat it.

Cooler temps drift this way, starting with a high of 81 today under partly sunny skies, according to the National Weather Service.

Flu shots. Holiday shopping sprees. Early discounts on artificial Christmas trees.

Where has summer gone?

Shivers. Here comes winter.

Contact Janet Romaker at: jromaker@theblade.com or 419-724-6006.