Despite wet weather, warmth to keep hold of Northeast Sunday

Following summerlike temperatures across much of the Northeast and mid-Atlantic on Friday, many warm weather enthusiasts may be wondering just how long this unseasonable warmth will last. In good news for those kinds of residents across the East, above-average temperatures are set to stick around through the weekend.

"A southwesterly wind due to an approaching cold front in the Midwest and high pressure over the Atlantic will keep warmer-than-normal conditions in the Northeast this weekend," AccuWeather Meteorologist Adam Sadvary explained.

For the Northeast and mid-Atlantic, a southwesterly wind, air that flows from the southwest to the northeast, is generally associated with warmer weather in the spring. In the case of Friday, warm air from the southern United States was pulled into the mid-Atlantic and Northeast as a storm tracked into northern New England.

Conditions were able to quickly skyrocket on Friday and many records were broken along the entire Eastern Seaboard. New York City, one of the many locations that broke its daily high temperature record for Friday, topped out at 82 degrees Fahrenheit. A normal high for the city at the end of May is around 53 degrees.

On Friday, many other locations, including Philadelphia and Boston, were able to soar to temperatures 20-30 degrees above normal for late March.

While temperatures did not reach the record-breaking level achieved on Friday, conditions on Saturday remained warm nonetheless.

"The warmer than normal weather conditions continued across the Northeast on Saturday, where cities like Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York City ran 10-15 degrees above average for this time of the year," AccuWeather Meteorologist Rob Richards said.

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Following a record high of 83 degrees on Friday, Philadelphia still was able to soar to 69 degrees on Saturday. A typical high temperature for the City of Brotherly Love at the end of March is around 57 degrees.

"For many, this lingering warmer air made it feel as if it was late April, well into the spring season," Sadvary said.

On Sunday, temperatures are still forecast to remain above average, but will likely moderate a bit when compared to Saturday due to an approaching storm. This storm will bring soaking rain to much of the Northeast and severe thunderstorms to much of the mid-Atlantic by Sunday afternoon.

Despite the wet, rather cloudy weather forecast on Sunday, many locations across the mid-Atlantic and Northeast can still expect to experience temperatures 5-10 degrees higher than average.

Temperatures on Sunday will range from the 60s and 70s across much of Virginia, West Virginia and Maryland, to 50s and 60s across Pennsylvania and New Jersey. High temperatures in the 50s will be common across New York and southern New England, while 30s and 40s will be the norm for northern New England.

In the coldest portions of northern New England, rain is forecast to change over to snow to end the weekend.

In the wake of Sunday's storm, temperatures will take a brief tumble on Monday as seasonably cool air builds across the northeastern quarter of the country. This trip back to near-normal temperatures is unlikely to last long as AccuWeather meteorologists are monitoring another storm set to slam into the East midweek.

Ahead of this midweek storm, temperatures are forecast to slowly creep back up a few degrees above normal for Tuesday and Wednesday. Precipitation is likely to arrive in the Northeast later Wednesday in the form of rain. However, if the system is able to pull cold enough air into the region, a mix with or complete changeover to snow is possible for parts of the Northeast into Thursday.

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