Stores around the country may already be preparing for the holidays, but it's warm enough in much of the U.S. to walk around in shorts.
Record-breaking temperatures have hit eastern regions across the United States this past week, from the northeast to Florida.
Measurements in New York City's Central Park were expected to creep "very close " to 74 degrees on Friday, a temperature not seen for the date since 1948, according to New York Metro Weather.
NYMW
The last few days have been unusually warm, as the National Weather Service noted in a tweet:
NYC
Poughkeepsie, New York, a town just outside of New York City, saw temperatures climb to 78 degrees, according to the Weather Channel. Flint, Michigan reached 79 degrees, and it was 80 degrees in Pueblo, Colorado — in the middle of November.
And Florida is undergoing a heat wave, according to the Weather Channel. This year has been one of the state's hottest on record — indeed one of the hottest across the entire U.S.
The heat results from a combination of a high-pressure area stretching from the Bermuda Triangle to the Gulf of Mexico, and that the jet stream is blowing toward Eastern Canada and the Northeastern U.S., preventing any cooling air from reaching the South.
It is not toasty out everywhere, of course. Thermometers in Amarillo, Texas, hit freezing for the first time this year, according to the National Weather Service Bureau there.
Amarillo
And the heat will not last forever, the Weather Channel noted. Things are expected to start cooling over the weekend, starting in the Midwest. New York City temperatures will drop down as low as 43 degrees on Sunday, according to the Weather Channel.
Brad Panovich, chief meteorologist for NBC Charlotte, tweeted a graphic on Thursday that sums up the patterns across the country.
Panovich
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