North Little Rock on Thursday afternoon opened a cooling center to offer residents refuge from daytime temperatures high enough to trigger a heat advisory, and the city intends to continue the service Friday.
The center at 2700 Willow Street was open from noon to 6 p.m. on Thursday and was set to be open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday, a release from the city states.
The decision came as all of Arkansas was under either a heat advisory or an excessive heat warning on Thursday, a post on social media platform X from the National Weather Service Little Rock states.
"There is really no way to sugarcoat this; it will be dangerously hot across Arkansas today," the post states.
National Weather Service readings from Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport/Adams Field in Little Rock showed that temperatures on Thursday reached a high of 99 degrees in the city, although readings from the North Little Rock Municipal Airport topped out at 90.