The overall pattern continues to evolve from the bitterly cold weather that we saw earlier this winter. December and January both featured temperatures below average, however, the average this month is 1.3 degrees above normal.
It only looks to get warmer next week as high pressure settles to our southeast. This will produce prime conditions for a big warm up. In fact, highs should easily climb into the 70s Thursday and especially Friday. A normal winter typically has five days with highs in the 70s. We have yet to see one this winter...until next week.
Here are a couple maps for all of you hard core weather fans. A long-range computer forecast (ECMWF ensemble) has been showing this warm up since last Saturday. I've posted the forecast from last Saturday (first) and the forecast from today (second). You can see how consistent this computer has been with this scenario!