Richmond is heading into the hottest weekend of the summer

Richmond is headed into what’s expected to be the hottest weekend of the summer, with temperatures around 100°F and a heat wave in the 90s projected through next week.

Be smart: Keeping cool is what matters this weekend.

Richmonders tell Axios they plan to avoid the heat by staying indoors “like a consumptive Victorian wife,” says local podcaster Johnathan Blade, or lying “face down over [an] A/C vent,” which is what Richmonder Garren Shipley is doing.

Meanwhile: Others are heading to water, either like Jack Lauterback — who plans to “pop the fire hydrant in front of Bamboo Cafe, thus creating a swim up bar on Main Street,” which we fully endorse — or to the James.

Plus: All of the city’s free public pools will be open all weekend, as will all seven of the area’s free splash pads.

The city’s usual cooling stations — public libraries and the Marshall and Southside social services buildings — will be open through Friday for buildings and Saturday for the libraries.

For folks in need of assistance with cooling, local nonprofit Project Homes is giving out free air conditioning units for qualifying families, and the Virginia Department for Aging has some for qualifying seniors.

What they’re saying: “Temperatures across the city can routinely vary as much as 15 degrees on summer days with no breeze,” Richmond meteorologist Sean Sublette wrote this week.