In Omaha, Nebraska, during the recent early September heat wave when temps hit the mid-90s Fahrenheit and lows stayed in the 70s, Pat Wilson-Johnson came to the Salvation Army’s North Corps Community Center for lunch.The location functions as a cooling center during high heat days. From growing up in Omaha, Wilson-Johnson remembers cool summer nights when she could let the breeze in through an open window. Now, she said, that just lets in the humidity. ‘Nine o’clock at night, it’s still 90, 91 degrees. That’s not right,’ Wilson-Johnson said. Scott Harris, who works at the center, said many people will have lunch and then sit in the lobby to cool off and drink water. The location also gives out bags of ice for people to stay cool when they leave. The Siena Francis House, a nonprofit that serves people experiencing homelessness, operates another cooling center during heat advisories. While they’re typically open from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Kristy McKern, director of case management and permanent supportive housing, said the organization has staff and protocols in case people need resources outside of these times.In Lincoln, the Lincoln-Lancaster County Health Department created an extreme heat response plan over a year ago. While the department has focused on high daytime temperatures, they are beginning to look at nighttime temperature data, a department spokesperson said. Right now, the Lincoln area has one cooling center that operates overnight. As in many other places, Nebraska’s minimum temperatures have shot up, presenting an often overlooked, overnight threat to people, livestock, and crops. In the coming decades, the minimum temperatures in Nebraska could be in the low 70s – more like what you’d expect in southeast Kansas and southern Missouri, said Eric Hunt, a University of Nebraska-Lincoln agriculture meteorology and climate resilience extension educator. For people, heat can stress the cardiovascular system, kidneys, respiratory system, and mental health, said Jesse Bell, director of the University of Nebraska Medical Center’s water, climate, and health program. But these high minimum temperatures don’t affect everyone equally. People at higher risk include the elderly and those with certain health conditions and on certain medications. It’s also more dangerous for people without working air conditioning, people who are houseless, student athletes, and people who work outside.Siena Francis and its partners travel throughout Omaha during high heat days, providing water, snacks, and sunscreen to folks who are outside. The organization works with some people who have mental illnesses and substance abuse problems. ‘A lot of these people don’t have access to just the essentials like you and I would have,’ McKern said. ‘So again, for us to be able to provide those things to them, so they don’t end up in the hospital, or they don’t end up dehydrated or passing out or fainting.’ Read Next Whether it’s ‘super’ or ‘Godzilla,’ El Niño is already breaking records Frida Garza & Kate Yoder On average in the United States, more people die from heat-related deaths than any other weather event. And it matters even when it’s not deadly. High heat at night also makes it difficult to sleep. According to a report organized by Climate Central, residents in Omaha and Lincoln are estimated to have lost about 30 hours of sleep annually between 2020 and 2025 due to heat, and three of those hours are attributed to climate change. For those with air conditioning, the heat continuing into the night can mean higher energy bills. Residents living in low-income housing or older homes and buildings that haven’t been weatherized could face more hardship during heat waves. Air conditioning accounts for a large chunk of electricity use from residential and commercial customers, according to the Energy Information Administration. Energy use increases in the summer throughout the day as temperature also rises. The usage maxes out at around 5 or 6 p.m. But as nighttime temperatures rise and air conditioning units work harder longer, the demand on utility companies grows. At the same time, these companies are currently experiencing multiple pressures to increase energy generation from customers like data centers. To meet demand on the grid, some utilities are deciding to keep fossil fuel generation online.Beyond Nebraska’s urban centers, the rising nighttime temperatures also pose a concern for agriculture, the state’s biggest industry. Higher nighttime temperatures mean that corn and soybeans — Nebraska’s two leading crops — use more energy instead of storing it, which can impact growth. Depending on the timing, duration, and intensity, the higher nighttime temps could result in smaller and fewer seeds and biomass for soybeans, said George Graef, a UNL agronomy and horticulture professor focused on soybean breeding and genetics. And if there are multiple warm days and nights, corn crops begin ‘shutting down and losing a week or more of filling time in late summer and early fall that we would normally get, which pretty significantly impacts yield,’ said Tom Hoegemeyer, a retired UNL professor specializing in agronomy and horticulture. In the short term, there is concern that these higher nighttime temps combined with drought could mean increased usage of groundwater in irrigated production, Hoegemeyer said. Fungi and bacteria could also hurt corn crops when it’s hot and humid at night, which means farmers may be driven to spray more chemicals on crops to protect them, Hoegemeyer said. Given these nighttime temperatures, Graef said the soybean industry is employing new technology and capabilities to evaluate and adapt the crop to the changing conditions. He’s confident new variants will be identified.While the corn industry has been aware of this issue for the last 30 years and has been able to adapt corn crops to better tolerate these conditions, Hoegemeyer is worried about how effective this will be long term.’If you believe the projections as to what temperatures will be like, say, by 2100, we may not be able to do that,’ Hoegemeyer said. ‘There are limits to what we can do with genetics and technology.’Livestock, including cattle, pigs, and chickens, make up a number of Nebraska’s leading commodities. The rising nighttime temperatures pose a concern for livestock in eastern and central Nebraska, where humidity is also rising. ‘The effects of heat stress overall tend to affect larger, more productive animals the most,’ said Rick Stowell, a UNL professor and animal environment extension specialist. ‘So, if you think about heavy animals, mature animals, fat cattle and a sow, for example, or a high-producing dairy cow, they are generating a lot more body heat, and so they have a lot more heat to get rid of.’ To adapt, producers are building more shade structures in feedlots, something Stowell has seen more of over the last 20 years. Other strategies: increased ventilation in buildings, altered feeding schedules, and sprinkling water on the ground and in feedlots for cooling. ‘Most livestock producers and poultry producers (in eastern Nebraska) are well aware that the situation is getting more challenging,’ Stowell said. This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Nebraskans couldn’t escape the heat this summer — not even at night on Sep 30, 2026.