I talked about the incredible warmth across the country in yesterday’s weather blog. We did warm up a little yesterday. It was a nice afternoon with high temps in the upper 50s to low 60s. However, today will be the REAL warmup! The heat that has been building to our west will finally slide east. We are going for high temps near 70 degrees this afternoon.

Forecast Temps Today

This will actually be close to the record high temperature. Most of the records are in the upper 70s to low 80s this time of year, but today was a quirk. The record is 71 degrees (1998). We have the ingredients for strong warming today. Lots of sunshine, a southwest wind with gusts up to 20mph, and very dry air. High pressure is to our south with a warm front to our north.

Regional Weather Map

There is a cold front in the Midwest. This will arrive here tomorrow morning, but it will not bring us any rain. In fact I think it will only bring us a few clouds. However, it will turn the wind to out of the north/northeast. Most of the winds will be off of the water. Water temps are in the upper 40s to low 50s. (which was a big drop during November). So we’ll be a little cooler tomorrow despite fair skies. High temps will be in the lower 60s.

As you can see the warmth won’t get pushed too far south tomorrow. So as the wind turns again out of the south on Saturday, we’ll get another push of warmer temps. I put our highs back up to near 70 degrees. Our Future Trak model is even calling for some mid 70s. We’ll have more dry weather. It will be a nice day to put up holiday decorations, but it might not feel very Christmassy with the warmth. Regardless, it should be a nice day.

I’ve dried up the Sunday forecast except for an isolated shower over the Outer Banks. High temps will be in the mid 60s (maybe upper). Then we’ll have a stronger push of south winds and warmer air on Monday. So high temps will aim for 70 degrees again. However, this time there will be more moisture coming up ahead of a strong cold front. So there will be more clouds and scattered rain showers. Temps will drop about 20 degrees going into Tuesday. The timing of all of that may change. So stay tuned for updates.

Meteorologist: Jeremy Wheeler