By Arun Kumar, IANS
Washington/New York : The US capital had a taste of Indian summer as temperatures hit 102 Fahrenheit (39 C), breaking a nearly 80-year-old record by one degree and sending residents scurrying indoors to escape from oppressive heat and humidity.
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 70 km per hour Wednesday afternoon, rather than a usual speed of 85 miles per hour.
The normal high for Aug 8 is 88 degrees F (31 C). The record, 101 F (38 C), 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”.
Sample one: A woman 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 F (43 C), she told police.
The Weather Service said relief from the “mighty, golden, burning sun” could come toward the weekend, with a chance of rain Thursday and Friday.
Meanwhile, a torrential downpour sent water surging through New York’s subway system and highway tunnels and across airport runways, leaving thousands of commuters stranded a la Mumbai.
The storm, which also spawned a rare tornado, hit just before dawn. By rush hour, the subway system was virtually paralysed when pumping stations became overwhelmed. Bedlam resulted from too much rain, too fast; some suburban commuters spent a half day just getting to work, local media reported.
Every line experienced some sort of delay as track beds turned into streams gurgling with millions of gallons of rainwater. The washout was the third time in seven months that the subways were disrupted by rain.
In Manhattan, Times Square was one huge mess Wednesday, packed with many of the four million riders who rely on the subway system daily. Thousands waited for hours for any means of transportation, jostling one another to get on the few buses that arrived.
The suburbs were no better.Hundreds of commuters were stopped on a Metro-North train due to track flooding.Streams of people in business attire with briefcases, cell phones and BlackBerries in hand trudged through drenched streets toward the subway. But it, too, was flooded. The hordes then made a beeline for buses they’d spotted up the street.
Tornadoes have hit New York City before, but not often. The National Weather Service had records of at least five, plus sketchy detail on the last reported tornado sighting in Brooklyn, in 1889. None was as strong as Wednesday’s twister, which had winds as high as 215 kmph.