It hit a June-like 80 Wednesday in Philly, and a repeat is likely Thursday
The highs Wednesday and Thursday would be normal for the first week in June, but April heat isn't all that unusual. Check out 1929.
A day ahead of schedule, June-like warmth Wednesday was pushing temperatures toward 80 across the Philadelphia region, the highest they’ve been in six months, with an encore expected Thursday.
“It got a little warmer than expected,” Jonathan O’Brien, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service Office in Mount Holly, said Wednesday.
A warm front pulsed northward more aggressively than forecast, and readings rocketed to 80 at Philadelphia International Airport and a little higher elsewhere. The Phillies and New York Mets got to play in actual baseball weather at Citizens Bank Park on Wednesday afternoon, with a gentle breeze blowing out to right field, and the two teams combined for 15 runs (the Phillies getting only six of those).
» READ MORE: The weather can make playing baseball in April adventurous
But in a variation of a theme that nature has been orchestrating for the last 10 weeks — only an octave higher — the volatility is due to return, with showers likely Thursday and Thursday night, and possible again Saturday and Saturday night along with a cool-down.
Daytime highs on Easter might be 25 to 30 degrees lower than Wednesday and Thursday, and early next week folks in the Poconos could even see some snowflakes. “You typically get ups and downs this time of year,” O’Brien said.
Said Brian Thompson, senior meteorologist at AccuWeather Inc.: “In the spring and the fall you can deviate so much you still have the cold air trying to fight back against the north. You can get some pretty cold swings.”
» READ MORE: Yes, the weather can be volatile this time of year.
Those mornings in the 20s in March torched the star-magnolia blossoms, and this warmth is likely to have a very different impact on the flora, said Mike Karkowski, director of horticulture at the Tyler Arboretum in Media. “With a jump in warm temperatures, it can accelerate bud opening,” he said. Next up would be the lilacs, rhododendrons, and crab apples.
But the plants that have been around long enough should be used to this. While 80 would be a normal high for the first week in June and the world’s temperatures continue to rise, such April heat isn’t all that unusual, and no records will be challenged this week.
Historically, April has hosted some impressive heat around here.
The April 13 record, 89, was set in 1977, the day after it reached 92.
It made it to 94 on April 18 during a blistering hot spell in 1976, and the all-time April temperature record was set with the 95 recorded at Philadelphia International Airport on April 17, 2002.
The earliest 90-degree reading on record occurred April 7, 1929, and it also hit 90 the next day.
The Inquirer dutifully reported, “Flowers and shrubs and trees … continued to break out in bud and bloom in an alarming fashion.”
The story noted that by contrast the West was quite cold. That is often the case when it’s ultra-warm around here: The forecast low for Helena, Mont., on Thursday morning is 8.
“Times haven’t changed,” the paper quoted an unnamed “Weather Man” with the U.S. Weather Bureau as saying in that 1929 story, addressing the climate-change issue. “The polar ice caps haven’t shifted, and the earth hasn’t shifted its position in relation to the sun.”
He was unavailable for comment Wednesday.