Hot, dog days of summer heat up Long Island

The dog days of summer are looking to be barking hot for the rest of the week — and possibly next week too.

The forecast calls for a days-long stretch of scorching temperatures, made to feel even worse due to high humidity, according to the National Weather Service.

“When you factor in the humidity, it’s going to feel warmer,” said Jay Engle, a weather service meteorologist at Upton.

It could last five days, he said, or it could last six.

“That would be the worst-case scenario,” Engle said.

A heat advisory begins at noon Wednesday and continues through 8 p.m. Thursday, the weather service said.

An air quality alert for Long Island and New York City goes into effect Wednesday from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.

In Islip, the temperature is forecast to hit 92 degrees Wednesday; on Thursday, 89 or 90.

But the heat index is forecast to be higher Thursday, 96, than on Wednesday, 94, so it’ll feel hotter, he said.

Local governments are opening cooling stations to accommodate people who don’t have air conditioning. Outreach teams are canvassing to urge homeless people to go inside. And the workers who must labor outdoors are prepping for an extra unpleasant workday.

And 4.3% of the civilian workforce are required to spend more than two-thirds of their workday outdoors, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Still, it’s nowhere near as hot on Long Island and in the rest of the metro area as the record-setting 104.5 degrees Fahrenheit boiling the United Kingdom, causing fires to break out.

Blame Long Island's heat streak on a cloud-clearing high pressure system allowing the sun to blaze forth, coupled with southerly winds drawing up moisture from the Gulf of Mexico.

More than 100 million people in the United States will feel the scorching heat, the weather service’s Weather Prediction Center said, noting Wednesday’s heat indices are expected to reach nearly 100 along “the I-95 corridor from Philadelphia to Boston.”

Locally, to beat the longest record stretch of hot temperatures in Islip, for example, the temperature would need to be at 90 or above for seven days straight, which happened in 2013, ending on July 20. (It’s a tie with 1973; records go back to 1963.) The last time there were five straight days of 90 or above was Aug. 10-15 of 2016.

“For this time of year, in July, since typically, climatologically, it’s the hottest time in the summer, you pretty much have to get at or above 100 to break a lot of the records,” he said.

Meanwhile, for Wednesday, the state Department of Environmental Conservation issued an air quality health advisory cautioning about ozone pollutant from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., covering the Island and the New York City area.

Among Long Island municipalities extending hours is Hempstead Town, where beaches and pools this week will be open longer than usual, according to Supervisor Don Clavin.

“Welcome to the Heat Wave 2022,” Clavin said. He added:  “Go to the beach, it will be 10 to 15 degrees cooler on the shore line.”

The town’s beaches, including East Atlantic Beach, Nassau’s Nickerson Beach, Lido Beach and Point Lookout will be open until 7 p.m. through Sunday.

The town’s 21 pools will be open until 8 p.m. this week while temperatures are supposed to be near the 90s.

“We want people to cool off and cool down and go enjoy yourself,” Clavin said. “It is going to be hot and you have to take care of yourself. You want to hydrate.”

Shelters that house homeless people should be equipped with air conditioning, but those who live on the street, outdoors or in other places that can get extremely hot can and should seek out a cooling center — or go to a shopping mall — for refuge, said Greta Guarton, executive director of the Long Island Coalition for the Homeless, a nonprofit that oversees the Island region's homelessness strategy.

“Our street outreach staff are out in the field speaking to individuals that they’re working with, trying to get them to go inside,” Guarton said.

But the workers are unsuccessful more often than not, at least when it comes to getting a homeless person to accept shelter.

“Most will not go into shelter. Many of them even in the winter, when it’s freezing cold, will not go into shelter,” she said.

There are various reasons homeless people decline to accept shelter — whether because they don’t want to surrender a shopping cart of possessions or over perceived or real conditions at shelters.

The latest homeless headcount on Long Island as of January is 3,200, with 84 unsheltered — which is almost certainly an undercount, even worse when it's hot.

With John Asbury and Joan Gralla

By Matthew Chayes

matthew.chayes@newsday.comchayesmatthew

Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.