Heat Wave

Just as the long heat wave was beginning to ease, state health officials linked yesterday the deaths of two more Marylanders to high temperatures and humidity, bringing the statewide toll to six. In all, 21 Marylanders have died from heat-related causes since May 30, the authorities said. Seven of the deaths were in Baltimore. A measure of relief arrived yesterday with the midday passage of a weak "cold" front. There was no rain to go with it, but at long last the heat, and especially the humidity, abated.

The heat wave that has poached Marylanders in their own steam and car exhaust for six days finally broke yesterday afternoon with the arrival of cooler air and rain, but not before the heat was blamed as a factor in another fatality. State health officials said a 65-year-old man was found dead in bed Thursday in his mobile home near Elkton. A Cecil County deputy sheriff said the temperature inside the trailer was close to 100 degrees. The death was the fourth heat-related fatality reported in Maryland during a week of daily highs that crept closer each day to 100. The demand for electricity to run air conditioners, which had forced a 5 percent voltage reduction across the region's electrical grid Thursday, eased yesterday.

It's payback time at area schools for those deep-freeze days )) of ice and snow -- and the price is heat and humidity.Many students and teachers whose school systems extended sessions further into June to make up for cold-weather closings will be laboring this week in 90-degree-plus temperatures, thanks to a late-spring heat wave.In Harford County, where classes originally were scheduled to end last week, schools were dismissed two hours early yesterday because of heat.The irony was not lost on Claire Parker, an art teacher at Bel Air Middle School.

A young woman and two children were killed yesterday morning in a Baltimore rowhouse blaze believed linked to an air conditioner as a summer heat wave sent temperatures soaring to record readings.Bright sunshine, temperatures reaching triple digits, high humidity and the virtual absence of a breeze made the day seem all the hotter -- and one of the most "unhealthful" this year, according to the state Department of the Environment, which issued a smog alert for the metropolitan area.The mercury peaked at 102 degrees in the city and 99 at Baltimore-Washington International Airport in midafternoon, matching records set at each location in 1986.

Celebrating his birthday yesterday as Maryland sweated through Day Five of the early summer heat wave, 34-year-old Van Wallace used a simple formula to stay cool as a cucumber on the streets of West Baltimore.1. Fill plastic bag with ice. 2. Apply bag to top of head. 3. Repeat.Keeping his bald head cool, explained Wallace as he hung out near the corner of Pulaski Street and Ridgehill Avenue, takes care of the whole body.A cold front drifting southeast from the Canadian plains is expected to take care of Maryland by Sunday, returning temperatures to the mid-to-upper 80s -- average for this time of year and a good dozen degrees cooler than the record heat that has fried the state since the July Fourth holiday weekend.

PART OF the psychological oppression of any extreme weather wave is the gnawing, insistent certitude of the sufferer that it will go on forever. Which it never does. This heat wave, which is actually greater than Central Maryland and grips much of the nation, claims victims including the elderly alone in un-air-conditioned apartments, the very young locked by criminally reckless adults in parked cars, and football players whose team owners and managers repudiate the game's true purpose as a cool-weather sport.

1936 was a record year nationwide for weather extremes, and Maryland was no exception.Great floods had roared through the state that spring, and in early July, temperatures were soaring well over the century mark.On July 11, 1936, the mercury hit 107.4 degrees in Baltimore, breaking the previous high mark of 105.4 (in 1918) and setting a record that has stood for the intervening 63 summers.Earlier that week, 11 Midwestern and Western states were in the grip of a heat wave that produced readings of 100 degrees in Duluth, Minn.

If the first day of summer was any indication of things to come, Marylanders may have a lot to swelter about this season.The high at the Custom House in downtown Baltimore was a sizzling 96, a degree shy of the record for the date set in 1988.The high at Baltimore-Washington International Airport was 92.And more is in store. Temperatures today are expected to approach the record of 100 -- also set in a 1988 heat wave -- and remain in the low to mid-90s at least until Thursday.The National Weather Service blamed the hot, humid conditions on a Bermuda high sitting off the southeast coast.

As state officials reported its 13 t h heat-related death on Wednesday, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and First Lady Katie Curran O'Malley urged senior citizens at a downtown Baltimore center to stay indoors and wear lightweight clothing. The latest heat victim was a senior from Baltimore County with an underlying health condition and was found last week inside a residence where the temperature was above 100 degrees. Officials also said there have been 481 emergency room visits statewide since July 1 for heat-related illnesses and dehydration, and temperatures are expected to exceed 90 degrees for the next several days.

The heat was stifling even at 11 a.m. yesterday when Eileen Marmon, a registered nurse, pulled her red Nissan up to an Annapolis rowhouse. Carrying a tote bag stuffed with material about pregnancy and a bottle of cool water, she marched up the concrete steps and knocked on the door. Erika Prophet, 22, who is expecting twins any day now, staggered to the door and invited Marmon to sit down. "Are you drinking enough water?" asked Marmon. She whipped out the bottle of water and placed it on a table next to an empty soda bottle.