Workers enjoy lunch in the sun along the Rose Kennedy Greenway, Friday, February 24, 2017, on the warmest February day ever recorded in Boston. (AP Photo/Bill Sikes)
BOSTON — An unseasonable warm air mass has been setting new record high temperatures across much of the country, bringing unprecedented warmth to the city of Boston this week.
According to Dave Bowers, senior meteorologist for AccuWeather.com, the official temperature for Friday reached 73 degrees, marking not only the warmest February day on record for the city, but the only recorded time that Boston has climbed into the 70s in February as well. Thursday matched the old record of 68 degrees, which was originally set on February 26, 1957.
The spring-like weather will continue through Saturday night, with the possibility of a new record high for February 25 as temperatures are expected to climb into the mid- to upper 60s.
That will go away by Sunday morning, however, as a possible round of thunderstorms may move through the area ahead of a colder air mass that will plunge temperatures back into the 40s for Sunday.
Bowers explained that the jet stream has been cutting a line from the western United States to the East for much of the winter, which can cut off cold air from Canada and instead pull warmer air from the Pacific or the Gulf Coast. A recent strong jet stream has been causing storms over drought-stricken California, creating severe weather in the Midwest, and breaking heat records from the Rockies to the Northeast with air that originated in the Southwest.
“The pattern will see-saw for much of next week [in Boston],” Bowers said. “Seasonable temperatures will return Sunday, feeling even cooler with the wind chill, but will start to warm up again early in the week.”
The city won’t see highs like this week, however. Temperatures will then drop back down around Wednesday or Thursday.
Bowers emphasized that though Boston is in a spring-like weather pattern right now, it does not signal an early start to spring. As Boston residents already know all too well, winter weather can come roaring back even after these warm spells, and this time of year is too early to start celebrating the end of cold and snow.
Workers enjoy lunch in the sun along the Rose Kennedy Greenway, Friday, February 24, 2017, on the warmest February day ever recorded in Boston. (AP Photo/Bill Sikes) 
