Bluefield Daily Telegraph, Bluefield, WV
January 14, 2013
Region’s temperatures reach new record highs
By GREG JORDAN
Bluefield Daily Telegraph
BLACKSBURG, Va. — Weekend temperatures either equaled or broke record-high temperatures at all the region’s official measuring sites, a forecaster with the National Weather Service said.
The temperature reported at 2 p.m. at the Mercer County Airport, the official recording site for the county, was 68 degrees. That temperature beat the record of 67 degrees set in 2005, said meteorologist Chris Fisher. Sunday’s temperature hit a new record high of 69 degrees by 3 p.m.
Saturday’s high temperature of 72 degrees exceeded the record of 68 that was also set in 2005, Fisher said. This record-breaking pattern was seen at the weather service’s official monitoring sites throughout the southern West Virginia and Southwest Virginia region.
“We either broke or tied at all our climate sites,” he said.
Warm air from the south helped to generate the record temperatures, but they should start dropping to normal winter temperatures today, he said.
“We’ve got a very warm air flow,” Fisher stated Sunday. “We’re going to drop back to Earth over a couple of days.”
One reason behind the decreasing temperatures is the rain in the forecast. Between one to two inches of rain could fall between Monday and Tuesday, Fisher said.
“We’re going to be in the upper 40s Monday and the lower 40s by Tuesday, which is basically normal for this time of year,” he said, checking his forecast. “After looking at the rest of the week, we’ll be dry once we get to Wednesday, but we’ll still be hanging around the lower to mid-40s basically for the rest of the week.”
