The numbers that end heat waves are the wrong ones for bodies. An extreme heat warning now covers south-central and southwest Arizona through August 28, with high temperatures of 110 to 115 degrees and overnight lows holding above 90 — a forecast whose most dangerous line is the last one. [1] Saturday's 115 at Sky Harbor broke a daily record; this paper counted Friday's national toll of 332 daily records yesterday. [1][2]

Clinical reality: the body sheds the day's heat load only when night temperatures drop. Lows above 90 mean recovery never arrives, so strain accumulates across days — which is why hospital admissions cluster late in heat warnings, not early. The burden is not shared evenly. Older adults on diuretics, outdoor workers, infants, and people in top-floor apartments without working air conditioning absorb every extension first; the deadliest heat deaths are found indoors, in homes that looked quiet all day. The standard playbook matters more with each added day. Shift outdoor hours before ten and after six. Drink before thirst. Check on isolated older neighbors by phone.

Six more days is not a forecast curiosity; it is a dose. The warning's length turns ordinary routines — school sports practice, construction shifts, a walk to the store — into cumulative exposures. Treat the calendar, not the thermostat, as the risk. [1]

-- NORA WHITFIELD, Chicago