Unusual October warmth could break more US records

It has been feeling more like summer than fall across parts of the U.S. as high temperatures soared to 10 to 20 degrees above average.

Tuesday’s 84-degree high at Maryland’s BWI-Marshall Airport broke a 71-year-old mark for the day. Decades-old records also fell in Wilmington, Delaware, and Trenton, New Jersey. Atlanta tied a record of 86 degrees Tuesday.

The summerlike warmth was continuing Wednesday in the Northeast, Southeast and southern Plains. Jim Bunker, the observing program leader in the National Weather Service’s office in Mount Holly, New Jersey, expects Thursday to be “another opportunity for some record warmth” ahead of a weekend cooldown.

“We’ve got a good high pressure setup that’s bringing this nice southerly wind and southerly flow up and that’s why we’re warm like we are,” Bunker said.

Could the brief warm spell be a sign of things to come as winter approaches?

The weather service is set to release its latest long-term forecast on Thursday, but Bunker says meteorologists have so far called warmer than usual weather in the Northeast.

“They’re still thinking that there will be above normal temperatures and below normal precipitation.”