May in December; Records Fall

Now

Mostly sunny, record warmth. A high temperature of 73° would be right at home on May 8, climatologically speaking, but that was the record-breaking reading at National Airport at 2pm today, a week before Christmas. Dulles blasted through its old record of 69° from 1984 with 76° at the same hour. BWI and Charlottesville also broke records set in 1984. Following a cold frontal passage, temperatures will return to more seasonable levels in the next couple of days, but the air behind the front is of Pacific origin, so the cold will not be particularly intense.

Temperature chart at 2pm today from Unisys shows 70s well into the Mid Atlantic region, while freezing temperatures are mainly confined to Canada.

Tonight and Tomorrow

Partly cloudy, cool. Under variable cloudiness tonight, lows will be from the low 40s in the city to the upper 30 in the 'burbs. Tomorrow will be mostly sunny and much cooler, with highs near 51°.

For the outlook through the rest of the week and into the holiday weekend, scroll down to Jason's post below.

Tropical Topics

A post-season review by the National Hurricane Center has identified a 10th tropical storm of the season. The unnamed storm developed on July 17 about 200 miles southeast of Nantucket and remained offshore, weakening before it crossed southeastern Newfoundland.