Gricel Hernandez

It wasn’t hot enough Tuesday afternoon to fry an egg outside, but the fact we were remotely close probably indicates a safety hazard for Butler residents.

The temperature in Butler at 3 p.m. June 24 was about 96 degrees, but it felt like 104 — the hottest it’s reached in the duration of this mid-to-late June extreme heat warning in Western Pennsylvania.

The extreme heat warning lasts through 8 p.m. Wednesday, June 25 for Butler and surrounding counties, with a maximum heat index of 105 expected, according to the National Weather Service.

To highlight how hot the roads, sidewalks and parking lots of Butler are, the Butler Eagle staff conducted a simple experiment: Can we fry an egg in the outside heat?

While our first attempt in our front parking lot proved unsuccessful, we tried a second time on the dark pavement of West Wayne Street. Though the egg did not fry, we could notice the edges sizzling a little as the sun kept beating down on us. We left it sitting in the street for a while, waiting to see what would happen.

For our third attempt, we tried out the surface of my white SUV. Though the egg slid off of the car’s hood rather quickly, the egg yolk’s substance told us a similar story — it was itching to cook, slightly hardening as it trickled down.

While our fourth attempt using the surface of assignment editor Tracy Leturgey’s darker colored SUV didn’t yield results we were looking for either, it had become clear to us, this heat was no laughing matter — egg cooked or uncooked. The heat was rough enough it had shut down editor Kristie Linden’s phone as she documented the experiment.

According to Accuweather, other factors added to the strong heat Tuesday afternoon. The UV Index was listed at 8, considered to be very high exposure. This was in addition to a 14% cloud cover. The average Butler cloud cover in June is around 42%, according to Weather Atlas.

The air quality was also considered “poor.”

When checked an hour and a half later, the egg still appeared uncooked, but it had hardened to the pavement. Our eggs didn’t necessarily cook, but we felt cooked after our experiment out in the emergency heat warning.