2 die as heat wave persists across U.S.

The heat wave baking the country’s midsection entered its third day Wednesday with high temperatures taking a deadly toll from Milwaukee to Memphis.

The hot, humid air, which the National Weather Service warned could create triple-digit heat index readings in many places, also began to spread into the Northeast, where temperatures across southern New England climbed into the 90s on Wednesday and appeared to be headed for potentially historic numbers on Thursday, meteorologists said.

In Tennessee, officials said a 75-year-old Memphis woman and a 60-year-old man in Brighton both died of the heat, which reached 98 degrees on Tuesday and was 93 by early Wednesday afternoon.

In Chicago, where temperatures this week hit a 34-year high and were expected to reach 95 on Wednesday afternoon, forecasters said relief was on the way with a cold front sweeping in Thursday night.

But while the front will push the hot weather eastward, and cause a temperature drop of as much as 30 degrees, it will also set the stage for severe thunderstorms in Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin.

Heat gauges in Philadelphia could near 100 degrees midweek, challenging the record 98 degrees set on June 9, 1933.

Sticky heat prompted early dismissals and canceled after-school activities at some public schools in Philadelphia and throughout Connecticut.

Hot and humid weather was expected to stifle much of the mid-Atlantic, said Greg Heavener, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Mount Holly, N.J.

“It’s going to be a really nasty couple of days,” Heavener said.