Willie Johns, a heavy equipment operator, wipe his brow while on the job Tuesday before noon as temperatures and humidity rose.

Photo by Tim Barber.

Chattanooga's going to get hotter, but not as brutal as a few states west.

In the Midwest and Great Plains, roosters have died, cattle have lost weight and ranchers have been sweating it out in one of the hotter summers in recent years.

Temperatures from Illinois to Kansas have hit 100 degrees in the last week and, with the added humidity, the heat index has risen to 115 degrees in some places across the Midwest.

The heat wave is expected to move this way, but Chattanooga might not face the same problems.

While Chattanooga will reach temperatures in the 90s, "it's not quite as intense as it is out in the plains, in the Midwest," said Chris Austin, a meteorologist with WRCB-TV Channel 3.

Through Friday, temperatures will be in the mid- to upper 90s, and the added humidity will make it feel like it's about 105 degrees, according to a National Weather Service forecast.

Anything above that will trigger a weather service warning for people to stay inside and drink more water, according to Tim Doyle, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Morristown, Tenn.

By Saturday, though, highs will be down in the low 90s, and by next Wednesday early morning temperatures will drop as low as the mid-60s, keeping the humidity lower throughout the day. Normally, the average high for the rest of July is 90 degrees.

  

     

Heat Wave

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about Andrew Pantazi...

Andrew Pantazi is an intern at the Chattanooga Times Free Press who says that when he was 7 he knew what he wanted to do for the rest of his life: play hockey for the Colorado Avalanche. Unfortunately, he says he wasn't any good at hockey, so he became a journalist instead. He writes about the lives we hide, like the man who suffered a stroke but smiled, or the football walk-on who endured 5 ...