Jennifer Edwards Baker reports:
We are on a wild weather roller coaster this week, with temperatures nearly 30 degrees above normal for this time of year followed by a chance for snow.
The warm spell will begin today with a high of 52 degrees. It will be wet, though, with a 70 percent chance for precipitation, mainly this afternoon.
More rain is expected tonight as the low only falls to 49, more than 20 degrees above normal.
Tuesday will be even warmer with a high soaring to 66 degrees, a good 27 degrees above normal for the last week of January, said meteorologist John Franks.
“It’s not uncommon to get these warm spells,” he said, noting that the winter of 2012 was one of the warmest on record with a high of 60 degrees on Jan. 31.
Coincidentally, the record high temperature for today, Tuesday and Wednesday is the same: 68 degrees, set today and on Tuesday’s date in 1914 – and again on Wednesday’s date of Jan. 30 in both 1916 and 1947.
More rain could fall Tuesday through Wednesday, a total of one inch in all, he said. It will be windy with gusts as high as 28 mph.
Overnight lows will remain mild and hover in the 50s.
Temperatures will remain balmy through Wednesday with a high of 60 before a cold front whips in from the west.
That will send the mercury into a free fall. By early Thursday, the low will fall to a frigid 25.
“We are going to see a 30-degree drop in temperature and get back into winter,” Franks said.
The sun will return on Thursday, but it will remain frosty with a high only reaching 30.
There’s 30 percent chance for snow showers Thursday night. The low will plunge to 17.
The first weekend of February will be quite cold with a daytime high only reaching 20 on Friday. Overnight lows will fall into the upper teens.
Saturday will bring a 30 percent chance for snow showers, but it’s too soon to say how much could accumulate, Franks said.
The daytime high will be 31 Saturday and Sunday.
