Delaware's first Heat Awareness Week coincides with the year's first 90 degree days

By Jay Shah

Published May 22, 2026 at 12:41 PM EDT

A group of students pose with their instructor in the left corner and two in the center holding a document. They are standing on a grassy lawn with bright daytime light and a brick university building with trees and red brick walkways in the background. — The Fall 2025 group of students got the governor to sign a proclamation declaring May 18-22, 2026 and the Spring 2026 group continued the work for Delaware's first Heat Awareness Week. From left - right: Instructor Vaishnavi Tripuraneni, Vice President of Mid-Atlantic Alliance for Climate and Health Shweta Arya, Jenny Barbour, Marina deLeeuw, Savannah McMullen, Ryan Gellner, Kat Turner, Owen Rader, Ariana Rodriguez, Cassandra Christoffel and TA Nora Lucas. Not pictured are Chloe Gentry, Ella Reifsneider and Olivia Bennis.

This week is Delaware’s first Heat Awareness Week. And it seems especially well-timed.

This week saw higher than average temperatures for this time of year. Maximum temperatures this week averaged over 80 degrees with the first three days seeing highs over 90 degrees, including record breaking highs in Wilmington and Georgetown.

The creation of Heat Awareness Week in Delaware is the culmination of an effort by a group of Univ. of Delaware students in a class taught by Vaishnavi Tripuraneni, Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography and Spatial Sciences. Two of them - Katherine Turner and Jennifer Barbour - joined Delaware Public Media’s Jay Shah to explain why heat awareness matters and efforts to address heat-related issues.

Delaware's first Heat Awareness Week

Katherine Turner and Jennifer Barbour were two students from their group who joined DPM's Jay Shah to discuss how they organized the state's first Heat Awareness Week.