<p>Atlanta on Friday endured its eighth day of 100-degree temperatures this month, breaking a record for the city's hottest month.</p><p>Previously, July 1993 held the record with seven days of temperatures of 100 degrees or more, according to records that go back to 1930.</p><p>Hotlanta lived up to its nickname this month, with the mercury hitting 100 on August 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 15, 16 and 17, according to the National Weather Service.</p><p>The mercury hit 101 degrees in Atlanta before 3 p.m. Friday. At that time it was an even 100 in Rome and Macon, and 101 in Cartersville.</p><p>The four-day stretch of the 8th to the 11th tied the record for most days of 100-degree days in August, set in 1980, said Pam Knox, Georgia's assistant state climatologist.</p><p>The heat wave over much of the nation has proved deadly, with nine confirmed deaths in Missouri, eight in Illinois, four each in Arkansas and Georgia, two in South Carolina and one in Mississippi, as well as one death in Tennessee outside Memphis. There have also been eight reported deaths in Alabama.</p><p>"We are most concerned with individuals living in homes without air conditioning. We ask the public to contact elderly friends and family to make arrangements to assist them," said Dr. Donald Williamson, Alabama's state health officer, in a prepared statement.</p><p>Last summer, a heat wave killed at least 50 people in the Midwest and East. California officially reported a death toll of 143, but authorities last month acknowledged the number may have been far higher. A 1995 heat wave in Chicago was blamed for 700 deaths.</p><p>In the Atlanta area, thunderstorms were predicted for Friday evening, followed by sunny weather Saturday and temperatures in the high 90s, according to the National Weather Service.</p><p>Atlanta residents shouldn't feel too miserable. "It's not nearly as bad as Augusta," where it was 103 late Friday afternoon and which has experienced 12 days of 100-degree temperatures this month, Knox said.</p>
