Record falls; more to come
The official high in Philadelphia Saturday reached 69, tops for the date.
The temperature at the government's official thermometer at Philadelphia International Airport fell just short of 70, but the high of 69 broke the record of 65.
That one was set way back in 1931, during the Hoover administration.
It was even warmer elsewhere – up to 72 at Wing's Field, in Blue Bell. And Tony Gigi, now retired from the National Weather Service, weighed in with a 73 from Mount Laurel.
The fact that the airport reading didn't quite get to 70 probably had something to do with the microclimate in the vicinity of the meadow where the automated observing system is located.
Yet another record is likely to fall Sunday, with the temperature again heading toward 70 or beyond, and another one could go on Monday. The record for both days also is 65.
We should note that those 65s represent so-called cheap records. Philadelphia has one of the nation's oldest temperature archives, dating to 1874.
Even so, the temperature-record data doesn't quite track lock-step with the dates. The city has had 70-plus daysgs in January.