INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Thursday will go down as the hottest day ever for many Indiana locales, and the steamy temperatures will stick around for at least another day.

The National Weather Service said a large ridge of high pressure brought in the hottest temperatures in nearly 80 years. The temperature soared to a record 106 degrees in Fort Wayne and Evansville and 104 degrees in Indianapolis. For other cities, it was the hottest it’s been in Indiana since 1988.

Because of the heat, Fort Wayne opened three pools free of charge on Thursday. Jenny Barney, lead supervisor for the aquatic department at the North Side pool, said all three were at capacity within a half-hour of opening.

"If we didn’t have a steady breeze it would be miserable, but there’s a steady nice breeze so it kind of kept everyone at bay,” she said. “But if we didn’t have that breeze we would have had trouble as far as people feeling the heat.”

The 106 degree temperature in Fort Wayne tied the city’s record, set three times before. In Evansville, 106 degrees was the highest temperature the southwestern Indiana city had seen since July 15, 1936.

The 104 degrees in Indianapolis was the record high for the day and for the month of June, breaking the mark of 101 set on June 28, 1934. It was the hottest day in the Indianapolis area since the temperature hit 104 on July 14, 1954.

The temperature hit 105 in Muncie and Terre Haute; 103 in Bloomington and Shelbyville; 102 in Goshen and Kokomo; and 100 in Gary, South Bend and Lafayette.

The weather service was predicting more hot weather Friday.

Cooling centers were opened in many places across Indiana. The Salvation Army reported that it opened cooling centers in more than two dozen cities.

Maj. John Turner says he doesn’t know how many people are using the centers. He says he was at one of the cooling centers in Indianapolis several times Thursday. At times, he said, there were just a few people there and other times, there were more than a dozen.

“It seems they are coming in and getting some relief and leaving,” he said. “It gives them the chance to commiserate with other people going through the same thing.”

The Center Grove Daily Journal reports the water level of a Johnson County water tower south of Indianapolis could give firefighters trouble because it is down to 4 feet. It normally should be at 30 feet.

Water officials tell the newspaper that Bargersville residents have been averaging using about 7 million gallons of water per day, which is more than the town’s water plant is created to handle.

WISH-TV reports more than 40 Bishop Chatard High School students went to downtown Indianapolis on Thursday to pass out water to those in need.

Posted 6/29/2012