Near record-high temperatures hit Butler on Monday
Punxsutawney Phil’s Groundhog Day prediction may have been a bit off. Summer came a few weeks early this year, not spring.
On Monday, March 4, Butler residents saw temperatures of 71 degrees, just 5 degrees short of the record high in Butler for that date. That record was set in 1976, when temperatures hit 76 degrees. (Records for the Butler station only go as far back as 1969.)
“We have southerly winds bringing warm air from the south,” said meteorologist Bill Modzelewski, of the National Weather Service in Pittsburgh. “We had a storm track its way up to the north, so we have winds cross over our area bringing that warmer air from the south.”
Temperatures are expected to stay in the low 70s on Tuesday afternoon, although forecasts call for a chance of rain after 1 p.m., with those chances increasing into Tuesday night and Wednesday morning.
“We do have some rain chances coming in, mainly (Tuesday) night into Wednesday, it looks like,” Modzelewski said. “It cools down a little bit on Wednesday and Thursday, back down to around 60 for the high, and then we do have some rain moving in for this weekend.”