A RECORD BREAKING DAY!

Temperatures soared into the 60s and 70s in the Midwest Friday afternoon and crushed records. This is especially impressive considering temperatures were below normal just three days ago. Wednesday morning temperatures were in the teens and high temperatures were in the 30s. Temperatures Friday rose above normal by 20+ degrees!

The red and orange dots above show where record highs broken Friday. The yellow dots are where temperatures were within three degrees of the records. In my local area there were 86 year old records that fell... not just fell... got crushed!

The warm air was a combination of an upper level ridge and a surge of warm air ahead of a cold front. The front led to gusty south winds and just a few clouds Friday evening. The front will lead to slightly cooler air moving in over the weekend but it will still be mild as an upper level ridge stays in place.

Here are the projected high temperatures for Saturday and Sunday:

Temperatures will be about 10 to 20 degrees lower than Friday, but still above normal. It will be sunny and the winds will be calm - pretty good weather for late November. It will be calm and dry not just through the weekend but through the next week.

Little to no rainfall is expected over the next week. The month so far has been pretty dry - in Cedar Rapids we've just had 0.59" over the last 24 days and it looks like the month will end dry.

Enjoy the calm, mild weather!

RK