Dangerous heat grips wide stretch of South, Midwest

Heat indexes as high as 117 degrees expected in areas.

Forecasters BIRMINGHAM, ALA. — are warning of scorching heat across a wide stretch of the U.S. South and Midwest, where the heat index will feel as high as 117 degrees in some spots.

Parts of 13 states on Monday will be under heat advisories, from Texas, Louisiana and Florida in the South to Missouri and Illinois in the Midwest, the National Weather Service reported.

“It feels like hell is what it feels like,” said Junae Brooks, who runs Junae’s Grocery in Holly Bluff, Miss.

Many of her customers were wearing straw hats or keeping cool with wet rags around their necks, she said Monday.

Some of the most oppressive conditions Monday were being felt in Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi and Oklahoma, forecasters said.

It was expected to feel like 116 degrees in parts of eastern Oklahoma, near Tulsa, on Monday, forecasters said. And parts of Arkansas just west of Memphis, Tenn., could see heat indexes Monday of around 117 degrees.

Heat exhaustion and heat stroke are among the main threats in those areas.

“You are more likely to develop a heat illness quicker in this type of weather, when it’s really humid and hot,” said Gary Chatelain, a National Weather Service meteorologist based in Shreveport, La.

Stifling humidity is hanging in the Louisiana air partly because the area has seen such a wet summer, Chatelain said.

More of the same is in store for Tuesday, when heat and humidity will again make for dangerous heat indexes. However, an approaching cool front should help ease the intense heat by Wednesday, Chatelain said.

“If you’re going out in the summer, prepare for the worst,” he said.

That means people spending time outdoors should take breaks in the shade, drink plenty of water, wear hats and light-colored clothing, among other precautions, he said. Anyone who stops sweating in the heat should be aware that it might be a sign of heat illness.

But in the Mississippi Delta region, farmers did not have a choice but to work in the fields Monday since they’re scrambling to make repairs and get caught up after floodwaters inundated the region in recent months, Brooks said. The flooding — which involved an area larger than New York City and Los Angeles combined — has recently receded and the farmers are just now able to reach their land and begin cleaning up the mess left behind.

“The mosquitoes the gnats, the spiders, the snakes — all of them — have been way worse this year,” Brooks said of the land known locally as the Yazoo backwater area.

In Tennessee, high school football coaches across the state were adjusting practice schedules Monday and Tuesday, with some moving the workouts indoors and others conducting training in the early morning or evening, The Tennessean reported.