Philly reached a record high on Wednesday as the dry spell endures
Get this: It might even rain Sunday.
Perhaps it was the dry spell or the remnants of the overheated campaign rhetoric in the air, but on Wednesday the temperature reached 80 at Philadelphia International Airport, a record for a Nov. 6, and what would be a normal high for the first week of June.
Records also fell in Atlantic City, Wilmington, Trenton, and Reading, the National Weather Service said.
What did not fall yet again was rain, as Wednesday marked day 39 of a dry spell that began on Sept. 29.
A mostly dry cold front due to pass through the region is forecast to shave a few degrees off Thursday’s temperatures, followed by a cooldown to more seasonable readings over the weekend.
The front even offers a way-outside chance of a sprinkle landing in the official PHL rain gauge before daybreak, said Ray Martin, a lead meteorologist in Mount Holly. “We could always get lucky,” he said. But bet the under.
He said that a more promising opportunity could arrive Sunday, with as much as 0.3 inches of rain.
And sooner or later, he said, it’s bound to rain again around here, noting that eight to 10 months ago, people were asking, “‘When’s it going to stop raining?’ Be careful what you wish for.”
In the meantime, Thursday should be another pleasant day with a high in the mid-70s, well shy of any record.
Incidentally, the old Philly record for a Nov. 6 — 79 — was set in 1948, which happened to be the year that Democratic President Harry S. Truman shockingly defeated Republican Gov. Thomas E. Dewey.