Intemperate Temperatures Continue

With sleeves rolled up and sweat on his brow, Brian McFarland enjoyed the record heat as he waited with his wife and two children for friends to pick them up for a cruise of Boston Harbor.

"This is a major bonus," said McFarland, 37, of Kingfield in northern Maine. "We were skiing last week."

Not everyone in the family was thrilled.

"Too hot," complained 8-year-old son Dylan.

Summer-like heat baked the eastern third of the country again on Wednesday, toppling records and sending people outside in search of sun — and relief.

"Whatever is cold is flying out the door," said Barbara Fingold, a co-owner of Bart's Homemade ice cream parlor in Northampton, Mass. She figured she was filling 40 ice cream cones every hour.

It felt like July, not mid-April. As Phoenix, Miami and San Antonio all hit the low 80s, Boston hit a record high of 92 degrees and Springfield sweltered at 95. Concord, N.H., posted a record 91 and Portland, Maine, a record 80. Albany, N.Y., posted 91, the earliest recorded 90-degree temperature there. New York and Newark, N.J., both had a record of 96 and Philadelphia hit 95. It was 94 in the nation's capital.

The unseasonable warmth stretched from the Midwest to southern Maine, where the Portland beaches played host to people in swimsuits before the mercury dropped into the 50s.

The heat that enveloped the East on Wednesday was expected to ease on Thursday, although above-normal temperatures in the 80s were still likely from the mid-Atlantic to the Midwest. Cooler weather advancing across the northern Plains was expected to reach the Northeast over the weekend.

Meanwhile, the heat didn't help business Wednesday at Ed Claiborne's Red Deluxe hot dog stand in downtown Richmond, Va.

"I typically look forward to spring-like weather because that's when people come out to eat outside," Claiborne said. "Right now, it's too hot for people to come outside."

Leona Williams, shopping in Philadelphia for summer clothes for her children, said she was enjoying the heat — to a point.

"Winter was so mild it was almost like spring, and now it looks like spring's going to be like summer," Williams said. "It's very strange."

The late afternoon sun was so hot in Manhattan that Theresa Hudec said her 10-minute wait for a bus home felt like an hour.

"It came too hot, too soon," she said. "If it's like this now, what's going to happen in July and August?"

Farther west, snow melting in the heat combined with recent heavy rain brought floods to northern Michigan, leading to an evacuation order in Ironwood. Michigan Gov. John Engler declared Gogebic County and Ironwood a disaster area Wednesday and National Guard troops were sent to help.

"We got help from local residents, city departments and we've got high school students out here helping us sandbag to protect what we can," said public safety director Joseph Cayer.

School was let out early Tuesday at Glidden, Wis., so youngsters could help sandbag low-lying areas along the Chippewa River. In Ironwood, students helped stanch the rising Montreal River.

"When they put over the intercom that they needed help, I wanted to go," said junior Aaron Ruotsala, 17. "When we got there, the river was rising really, really fast. I mean you could actually see it."

On the waterfront in Camden, N.J., students on a class trip fanned themselves while walking to the Amistad, a replica slave ship. Across the Delaware River, a summer-like and soupy haze hung over Philadelphia.

Bobbie Beebe rested from cutting grass at a church in Hopewell, N.J., sweat beading on her arms and legs.

"If this is a premonition of the summer," she said, "I'm worried."

By Theo Emery