Sunny and beautiful in the Philadelphia region this weekend. Here's the full forecast.
Let the warm-up begin.
After a bit of a chilly middle to last week, temperatures have started to climb and will continue to rise through the weekend into next week. Along with warmer temperatures building across the region the stretch of sunshine and dry conditions will continue as well.
Temperatures Saturday morning started on the chilly side, with places like the Lehigh Valley in the 30s. Thanks to the dominance of high pressure, however, sunshine will get to work quickly to warm temperatures. Before noon we hit the 60s across much of the region and get back into the low-middle 70s for much of Saturday afternoon.
Sunday will be very similar to Saturday with just a little more warmth through the afternoon as temperatures climb into the middle and possibly upper 70s.
The warmth will continue to increase through the first half of next week with high temperatures leveling off in the low 80s Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.
By Wednesday night a cold front will sweep through the region and knock temperatures back into the 60s for the second half of the week. This cold front will be producing showers to our west, but the latest models show that as the system advances east into our region a lot of those showers will dissipate leaving our region with a minimal chance of rain.
The lack of rainfall across the region has become an increasing concern over the last couple of weeks with close to 75% of the region now under drought conditions. The last soaking rain of over one inch was back on August 8.
The month of September itself only saw a total of 0.77 inches of rain and so far, October is yet to record any rainfall. As of Saturday, the Philadelphia area has gone 21 straight days without measurable rainfall [0.01 inches or more] which is just 8 days shy of the all-time record dry stretch set back in 1874.
And while next week's cold front has the potential to bring a couple drops of rain it will certainly not be a drought buster. It's looking like this front will fizzle out before it brings us rain, and the long-term forecast (next 6-10 days) has our region at a below average chance of precipitation. If Thursday's cold front doesn't bring precipitation and the long-term forecast holds, we will likely break this record.
Here's your 7-day forecast:
Saturday: Beautiful. High 73, Low 44.
Sunday: Mild. High 76, Low 43.
Monday: Warming up. High 80, Low 47.
Tuesday: Near a record. High 81, Low 52.
Wednesday: Partly cloudy. High 80, Low 53.
Thursday: Cooler, sunny. High 65, Low 54.
Friday: Seasonably cool. High 64, Low 41.