MILLIONS of Americans are set to sizzle as extreme temperatures are expected to hit with highs of 43C this weekend.
Washington D.C will be just two degrees shy of the scorching temperatures in the Death Valley desert in California.
The dangerous heat is set to break more than 100 local heat records and experts warn it won't even cool down overnight.
Officials have released warnings that smog may make it more difficult for certain people to breathe – including the very young, elderly and those with asthma or lung diseases.
For most areas, it won't be record-breaking daily highs, but more that it won't cool down during the night – which can be dangerous.
Washington's Mayor Muriel Bowser declared a heat emergency on Tuesday.
Today, Philadelphia and New York have followed suit.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said: "Extreme heat is dangerous, period.
"We are deploying all resources at our disposal to ensure New Yorkers remain safe and cool during extreme heat.”
For today and tomorrow, parts of Texas, Oklahoma and parts of the Midwest will feel the burn, and on Saturday it's expected to spread east to Maine and Florida.
Temperatures in parts of the East won't drop below 26C at night.
At this level, temperatures will be 10-15 degrees above average even for the middle of the summer.
RECORD-BREAKING HEAT
"The heatwave will likely be 'short and searing" said Greg Carbin, forecast branch chief for the weather service's Weather Prediction Center.
The heat index, which is what the temperature feels like, should hit 110 (43.3 Celsius) in Washington, D.C., on Saturday and 109 (42.8 Celsius) in Chicago and Detroit on Friday, said Jeff Masters, meteorology director of Weather Underground.
According to Current Results, the typical temperature for most of the US is between 22 and 25 degrees.
Yesterday it was Washington D.C's seventh day of temperatures of at least 32C and it is expected to last another five days.
According to AccuWeather, Washington will feel as hot as Death Valley on Saturday.
In the nation's capital, the temperatures are forecast to reach 43c, just 2 degrees less than the Californian desert.
Dr Michael Kaufmann, EMS medical director with the Indiana Department of Homeland Security said: "Daytime hours when the sun is out is clearly our highest risk periods.
"We're not expecting the drops in temperature at night – or the humidity – that we often realize when the sun goes down."
Roger Axe, who heads the emergency management agency in Indiana's Greene County, said he has asked churches and other organizations to open their doors as 'possible lifesaving cooling centers."
Fire stations in Detroit will be open around the clock, and in Chicago the police station will be it's primary 24-hour cooling centre.
For animals the weather is expected to be incredibly tough, with staff at Brookfield Zoo near Chicago preparing by ordering huge blocks of ice.
In New York at least one person has died after remnants of Tropical Storm Barry hit, with dramatic scenes of lightning and water gushing through subway stations.
Jarrod Marotto, 21, from Connecticut, died after a tree was struck by lightning and a large branch fell onto his car.
He died on the way to the hospital, according to WABC-TV.
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