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DES MOINES, Iowa — <\/span>Summer camp and other outdoor activities were canceled or delayed Monday as a heat wave held its grip<\/a> on the Midwest and spread eastward. Communities opened cooling centers and urged people to take it easy and stay hydrated. <\/p>\n \u201cOverall, we\u2019re looking at just a really hot and humid pattern. It\u2019s going to be with us through most of the week,” Andrew Ansorge, a meteorologist in Des Moines, Iowa, said of the first prolonged period of heat this summer. <\/p>\n Much of Iowa and big chunks of the Midwest were under an extreme heat warning through at least Tuesday. Temperatures were forecast to reach the 90s, with heat index values, or \u201cfeels-like\u201d temperatures, expected to top 100 degrees (37.8 degrees Celsius) in the region, Ansorge said. <\/p>\n Visiting Des Moines with family, Rachel Washburn searched for things to do with kids during a heat wave. They landed at a water sprayground before lunch, where her children played tag in the cool water to escape a heat index forecast to reach 109 degrees Fahrenheit (43 degrees Celsius).<\/p>\n \u201cMy kids were quite shocked at the heat and humidity,\u201d said Washburn of her seven children ages 18 months to 17 who are used to more temperate weather in Bemidji, Minnesota. \u201cWe were hoping for some good weather, but we’ll make do.\u201d<\/p>\n Some of the worst conditions are expected by Thursday and Friday as the heat moves through the Ohio Valley, the Mid-Atlantic and into the Northeast, with the potential for some record-high temperatures, said Scott Kleebauer, a meteorologist with the Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland. <\/p>\n On Monday morning, Tom and Cindy Youngblood walked around an outdoor sculpture park in Des Moines, enjoying brief moments of shade and a helpful breeze. The couple, both 67 and from Rogers, Arkansas, returned from a camping trip in Wisconsin and chose a hotel over their camper van Sunday.<\/p>\n \u201cWe did not want to camp last night because we knew it would be too hot,\u201d Cindy Youngblood said.<\/p>\n Kleebauer said one of the center\u2019s biggest recommendations is to stay hydrated and have access shady areas and air conditioning.<\/p>\n \u201cIt just so happens to be coinciding with a time frame where a lot of people are away and a lot of people are going away for vacation\u201d during the Fourth of July holiday week, he said.<\/p>\n