WESTERN NEW YORK – Health experts warn that fans really aren’t your friends in extreme heat.
Experts say fan don’t remove humidity, but rather they move air over your skin evaporating moisture more quickly than usual.
Most heat related deaths occur when residents are inside with a fan on than without. The heat also can take a toll on pets and other animals.
The health department says fans aren’t all bad, but they must be combined with other ways of staying cool like drinking water and taking showers.
A high pressure system stretching from coast-to-coast is keeping the heat turned on this weekend. The heat and humidity are made to feel worse by the large amount of moisture in the air coming from the Gulf of Mexico, much of it left over from Hurricane Barry.
An experimental weather service forecast projects that nearly 100 local records will be broken Thursday and Friday in Texas, Oklahoma, parts of the Midwest and a large swath of the East Coast. On Saturday, 101 records could fall in an area stretching from Texas to Iowa and east to Maine and Florida, according to projections.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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