PITTSFIELD — Catheryn Chacon was explaining to a reporter how she plans to weather the three-day heat wave currently plaguing the Berkshires.

Or at least, she was, until her 7-year-old niece Audrey Psillas sneaked up and drenched her with a bucket of water mid-sentence. She burst into surprised laughter.

Chacon, a Pittsfield resident, had brought her nieces up from Stockbridge on Wednesday to enjoy Clapp Park’s splash pad as temperatures approached 90 degrees. “Today, it’s definitely going to be hot,” she said.

“We don’t have a splash pad in South County, as far as I know,” she added. “It’s a good place.”

Families came to Clapp Park's splash pad in Pittsfield on Wednesday to cool off as the heat and humidity set in.

But there’s always the risk of getting, well, splashed.

City residents are relying on splash pads, cooling centers and pockets of shade to make it through the sweltering days ahead. A heat advisory for all of Berkshire County north of Pittsfield is in effect through 8 p.m. Friday, according to the National Weather Service in Albany, N.Y. An extreme heat warning is in effect in points south.

Temperatures topped out at 91 degrees in Pittsfield on Wednesday, just shy of the record high of 93 degrees reported in 2018. But forecasters say the temperature in Pittsfield could rise to 95 degrees on Thursday, the city’s all-time heat record that’s only been reached three times in recent history.

“It’s going to be a hot one,” said Karen Ryan, food service coordinator at the Christian Center in Pittsfield. The center, along with several other locations throughout the city, served as a cooling center on Wednesday for residents looking to escape the punishing conditions.

“I just think it’s important for anyone who has no place to go to get out of this heat,” Ryan said. To that end, the Christian Center handed out popsicles and lemonade to visitors seeking a break from the sun.

The shade was the place to be on Wednesday as temperatures and humidity soared. These people kept their cool in the shade of a tree along the swimming area of Pontoosuc Lake in Pittsfield.

The Christian Center will be closed Thursday and Friday, but residents can duck into several other cooling centers on those days, including the Berkshire Athenaeum and The First. The Ralph J. Froio Senior Center will be open Thursday, but closed Friday.

The Berkshire Food Project in North Adams, hampered by the heat wave, provided grab-n-go meals on Wednesday because the extreme heat made dining inside First Congregational Church impossible. The organization will close entirely on Thursday due to the heat.

"These decisions are hard for staff to make but they are informed and seek only the safety of our guests and volunteers," the organization said in a Facebook post.

For a group of young children playing basketball at The Common on Wednesday morning, the key to keeping cool while enjoying summer fun is a mix of optimism and practicality.

“Compare the heat wave to a sauna” is the glass-half-full approach of Anderson Barillas, 10. “A world sauna,” he mused. “A Massachusetts sauna.”

Zahkye Conyers, 10, suggests taking it easy to avoid getting overheated. “Just don’t push yourself,” he said.

And of course, an occasional dash through The Common’s splash pad doesn’t hurt.

A third city splash pad is still under construction at Durant Park. Jim McGrath, the city’s park, open space and natural resource program manager, said Wednesday the splash pad had its expected opening in late June pushed back due to a delay in equipment delivery. He said the city now hopes to have the splash pad open within the next two weeks.

For Jeffrey Provost, a Pittsfield resident staying in a local shelter, housing instability can make it “almost impossible” to find a reliable place to cool down.

“Stay in the shade” is his strategy, which he relayed from the shade of The Common’s gazebo.

“Just try to stay out of the sun,” Provost said. “It’s not as hard as people think.”

And, lastly, “hope for a breeze.”