By Mariel S. Clark
DNAinfo News Editor
MANHATTAN — Overheated New Yorkers were treated to a break from scorching temperatures on Thursday as a little rain and somewhat cooler weather moved into the area.
Thursday's forecast called for scattered morning showers and a high of 90, according to AccuWeather.
Although the low 90s are nothing to scoff at, they're more tolerable than Tuesday's and Wednesday's record-breaking heat, which saw temperatures hitting the triple digits in Central Park.
This week, Con Edison deployed extra crews to respond to problems in the power grid as New Yorkers, and their pets, struggled to stay cool by running air conditioners at full blast.
Around the city, construction workers, pedicab drivers, delivery people and others whose jobs required they be outside did their best to survive.
“It’s like 110 degrees in here,” Salvador Sanchez, a food cart vendor on Eighth Avenue and 58th Street, said on Wednesday. “Every five minutes I have to get out.”
Area hospitals saw an increase in patients, mainly due to the weather, as the extreme heat exacerbated existing illnesses.
"Several patients over the past 24 hours have ended up in the ICU due to the severity of their illness," Dr. Gabe Wilson, Associate Medical Director at St. Luke's Hospital, said Wednesday. "I suspect that if the temperature had been lower, they would not have been as sick."
Although Thursday's temperatures were expected to be 10 degrees cooler, the National Weather Service extended a Heat Advisory through noon Thursday, as muggy conditions continued through the morning.
The forecast for Friday and the weekend is expected to be hot but not brutal with a chance of rain and highs in the upper 80s and low 90s.
