FORT KENT, Maine — For much of the Maine school year, there’s nothing unusual about weather-related early releases and snow days.
But heat days?
This week in Presque Isle, the high school sent students home by 1 p.m. two days in a row because of hot weather.
“We call them the ‘triple-H days’ of high heat and humidity,” Presque Isle High School principal Eric Waddell said Tuesday afternoon as temperatures in northern Maine flirted with 90 degrees and 50 percent humidity.
Mainers have been baking under intense heat and humidity for several days thanks to a strong, slow-moving ridge of high pressure parked over northern New England and neighboring Canada, which is likely to start moving out after Wednesday, according to officials at the National Weather Service Office in Caribou.
A southwest flow of air circulating around that high has brought in moist air off the Atlantic directly across the region.
Atmospheric conditions also have prompted the state to issue an air quality alert for the southwest coastal region.
Even coastal Maine, normally a breezy cool oasis, hasn’t been spared, Lee Foster, NWS meteorologist said Tuesday.
“This air is so hot there’s not even any relief along the coast,” he said.
Unofficial reports coming in to the NWS on Tuesday had temperatures hitting 97 in Marshfield in Washington County, 90 in Southwest Harbor, 88 at the Trenton airport, and 89 in Presque Isle.
Bangor International Airport registered a high of 91 degrees Tuesday afternoon and 88 on Monday, according to the NWS Web site. Dew points, a measure of humidity, have been in the 60s since Saturday.
All that heat on the outside creates uncomfortable and unsafe conditions in buildings not equipped with air conditioning, like the Presque Isle High School.
“At 7:30 in the morning teachers have opened doors on some of the classrooms and it’s felt like a convection oven,” Waddell said. “One of the teachers has a thermometer in her room and yesterday it was reading 100 degrees.”
For the 630 students at the high school who started their school year last Tuesday, it’s meant some unexpected time off.
“It’s just not safe for them,” Waddell said of the building’s heat. “Not to mention what can you learn in that environment?”
Some Aroostook County schools start their year earlier than most schools to make up for a two-week break in September for the potato harvest.
While there have been no serious heat-related health issues at the high school, District Director of Health Services Deb Raymond said she has seen students complaining of headaches, dizziness and nausea as a result of the conditions.
“Superintendent [Gehrig] Johnson is aware how warm it is and how unacclimatized we are to these conditions,” Raymond said. “We are just not at all used to it.”
During the day Raymond and her staff make sure students and faculty alike drink plenty of fluids and do not overexert themselves.
“We also make sure the students dress in clothing to help keep them cool,” Raymond said. “Of course, we’ve had kids come in with little fashion statements with jackets on in this heat.”
According to NWS officials, relief is on the way with an approaching cold front coming in from the west.
“Today and tomorrow could be the last hurrah for real hot summer weather,” Foster, the NWS meteorologist said Tuesday. “Looking down the road it does not look like we are going to see a return to these temperatures.”
Northern Maine is expected to see the first benefits from the cold front with cooler and drier air this afternoon.
Down East regions, however, will have to wait another day.
“The front won’t move through the Down East and coastal regions until [Wednesday] evening,” Foster said. “So they are in store for another hot day with a lot of humidity.”
Meanwhile, the state Department of Environmental Protection issued air quality alerts this week after ground level ozone and particulate pollution concentrations rose to unhealthful levels in southern and coastal Maine.
“That slow-moving high pressure system with all the heat and humidity and wind from the southwest allowed the ozone into the state from areas like Washington, D.C., and New York,” Martha Webster, air quality meteorologist with the DEP, said Tuesday. “Upper level west winds also drew in moderate levels of particulate pollution from the Midwest.”
Together, it has made for unsafe conditions for what Webster termed Maine’s “sensitive groups,” including those suffering from respiratory disease, children, the elderly and anyone with a heart or lung disease.
Webster recommends taking precautionary actions including:
• Avoid strenuous activity, such as jogging, during midday.
• Close windows and circulate indoor air with a fan or air conditioner.
• Avoid using aerosol products such as cleaners, paints, and other lung irritants.
• Take it easy.
“I’m not saying don’t do anything,” Webster said. “But people need to take it easy.”
At the same time, Mainers may take heart in the fact that just six months ago, according to historical climatological data with the Old Farmers Almanac, it was 6.8 degrees in Fort Kent and 15.8 degrees in Bangor with between 5 and 11 inches of new snow.
“There’s always the old saying with the heat,” Foster said. “At least we don’t have to shovel it.”
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