Puppy Paw Balm. An Extra Shirt. New Yorkers Cope With Hazardous Heat.

As New Yorkers slogged through another day of blast-furnace July heat on Friday, some bore the benefits of advance planning.

People left their homes earlier than normal to run errands. Workers brought extra water bottles or sports drinks. Some carried an extra shirt in case excess perspiration necessitated a change.

Others, like Kenneth Chapman, 34, a Postal Service driver, not only planned ahead — stashing his mail truck with frozen water bottles — he also made sure to look forward to what awaited him at day’s end: splashing in his infant son’s inflatable kiddie pool at home in Westchester.

“That’s a motivation to get through the day,” Mr. Chapman said, as sweat coursed down his neck as he delivered packages in Prospect Lefferts Gardens, Brooklyn.

Still, it could have been worse. The heat index in New York City, expected to reach as high as 102, stayed below triple digits on Friday, with the actual temperature topping out at 92 degrees in Central Park.

New Yorkers coped as best they could. Those who had to be outside sought refuge in chilly lobbies or splashed their faces in Starbucks restrooms.

Others, like Lila Vogel, 93, planned her day around beating the heat. She left her Upper West Side home three hours early, at 6:45 a.m., to buy fresh cherries well before the temperature rose in earnest.

Unfortunately, Ms. Vogel also beat the fruit seller; his stand had yet to open. The fruit would have to wait, she decided. Better to surround herself at home with a fan and air-conditioner; at her age, she said, she didn’t dare emerge again.

“It’s OK,” she said as she pushed her walker up Broadway, sweat beading on her brow at 7 a.m. while the temperature climbed toward 80. “Life isn’t always exciting.”

Much of the New York City metropolitan region — including Long Island, southern Connecticut, the lower Hudson Valley and northwestern New Jersey — remained under a National Weather Service heat advisory through Saturday evening.

A heat advisory indicates potentially dangerous conditions for older and other vulnerable people.

Earlier, New York City had been under an excessive heat warning, meaning anyone may be at risk for heat-related illnesses. But the warning was downgraded to an advisory on Friday, according to the Weather Service.

Still, it was far from cool.

Before Jose Luis, 45, took Nanook, an 8-year-old Samoyed dog with the physique of a snowball, outside, he said he applied a protective balm to each paw.

“Central Park is his favorite place,” Mr. Luis said as he stopped at a coffee cart. “But now it’s complicated.”

Inside the coffee cart, Eslam Abdelgawad, 29, believed he had it worse.

“I work in double heat inside this cart,” he said, working a grill that sizzled with bacon, his shirt already soaked through. “If outside is 100, inside it’s 200.” On a regular day, Mr. Abdelgawad said, he gets dizzy in the cart. But his trial by griddle has prepared him for scorchers. “Outside feels like nothing,” he said.

The extreme heat now being felt in New York and elsewhere in the Northeast has baked other parts of the United States for more than a month. Its arrival in New England and the Mid-Atlantic states could expose as many as 118 million Americans, more than a third of the country’s population, to dangerously high levels of heat on Friday.

In Washington, D.C., where the temperature reached 97 degrees, lifeguards were given free ice pops; spray parks were slated to stay open later than usual; and swimming pools scheduled pop-up Aqua Boot Camps for 9 a.m. on the weekend so fitness-minded people could work out in the water.

Back on the Upper West Side in Manhattan, Keven Trent, 32, pushed a Fresh Direct cart between deliveries on the Upper West Side. He said he allowed himself short breaks to wash his face in Trader Joe’s and Starbucks bathrooms, and said he looked forward to every air-conditioned lobby. “It feels like heaven,” he said.

In Prospect Lefferts Gardens, Steven Genova, 22, was hurrying to finish a job repairing a chimney before it got any hotter.

“It’s just death,” said Mr. Genova, who lives on Staten Island, describing working in construction during a heat wave. And up on the roof, in the blazing sun? “Double death.”

The heat and humidity were expected to remain oppressive in the New York City area through Saturday evening, when thunderstorms are likely to move through.

As the hot spell persists, the guidance Mayor Eric Adams and other city officials offered residents on Thursday for seeking relief remained relevant: find public swimming pools, drinking fountains, splash pads and shady parks. The city’s pools, which open at 11 a.m., will stay open for an extra hour, until 8 p.m., on Friday and Saturday.

People without access to air-conditioning at home or who lose power were urged to go to one of the dozens of cooling centers the city has set up across the five boroughs.

“Heat kills more New Yorkers every year than any other kind of extreme weather event,” Mr. Adams said, underscoring the importance of finding ways to keep cool.

Weeks of scorching temperatures across North America, Europe, Asia and other parts of the world have put July on track to be Earth’s warmest month on record, the European Union climate monitor said on Thursday. Last month, the planet experienced its hottest June since records began in 1850, and July 6 was its hottest day.

Inside a Starbucks store in Manhattan, Linda Habashi, 54, who was visiting from Marin County, Calif., was reading the temperature out loud off her phone with growing foreboding. Temperatures in excess of 100 degrees have become routine where she is from, she said, but New York’s one-two punch of heat and humidity was worse.

“It’s sticky, hot, and you just get shiny and sticky from doing nothing,” she said as she took in the coffee shop’s manufactured chill. It wouldn’t stop her visit, she added, saying, “You just got to keep going. You live it, like everything else in this world.”

At Dramatics, a hair salon on Broadway, Marcello Costa, 40, shared some advice that he has been telling customers as they come in from the heat: Think twice about asking for short hair cuts, or risk buyer’s remorse when the temperature levels out.

“Never go for a haircut when it’s this hot, it’s same concept as never go to a supermarket when you’re hungry,” said Mr. Costa, who lives in Astoria, Queens. “You’ll end up being influenced by what you’re feeling in the moment — and you might regret it.”

Reporting was contributed by Ed Shanahan, Andy Newman, Shaila Dewan and Sharon Otterman.