NEW YORK — The heat for the past few days has been phenomenal even for New York. Yesterday afternoon [June 16] the thermometer stood at 99deg. in the shade, and with much humidity in the atmosphere it seemed almost impossible to live. Several deaths occurred, and a large number of persons were prostrated. Today the thermometer has been close on 100deg., and the atmosphere was still very humid, despite a thunderstorm which occurred last night, when great damage was done in various parts of the State by lightning.
The mercury mounted again today into the nineties along the Atlantic sea board, and the weather was intensely oppressive, but this afternoon the warm wave is crowded off the continent into the Atlantic by a cool anti-cyclone from Hudson’s Bay moving South-east. Copious showers are falling in the wake of the great heat-wave. — The New York Herald, European Edition, June 18, 1891