This story is part of the WHYY News Climate Desk, bringing you news and solutions for our changing region.
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It feels like summer in Philadelphia this week, even before the leaves have fully sprouted on trees.
Forecasted high temperatures of around 90 degrees Fahrenheit in Philadelphia could break a daily record on Wednesday set in 1941 and tie a record on Thursday set in 2002.
The balmy temperatures will be roughly 20 degrees above normal in Philadelphia for this time of year.
Unseasonably hot temperatures are sweeping through the Mid-Atlantic and southeastern U.S. this week, caused by a ridge of high pressure over the western Atlantic Ocean that’s bringing warm air up from the South, said Paul Fitzsimmons, lead meteorologist at the National Weather Service office in Mount Holly, New Jersey.
Climate analysts say these hot temperatures fit into a trend of warming spring weather.
“This heat snap we are going to have does have a fingerprint of climate change,” said Jen Brady, senior data analyst with the research nonprofit Climate Central.
Climate change makes this week’s high temperatures in Philadelphia twice as likely, according to the organization’s Climate Shift Index, which uses models to compare today’s world to a world without human-caused carbon pollution. In some parts of southern Delaware and South Jersey, this week’s high temperatures are three to five times more likely to occur due to climate change, the index found.
