SALT LAKE CITY — According to the National Weather Service, the high Saturday was 68 degrees in Salt Lake City, which was one degree off setting an all time high for the month of February and 5 degrees higher than the single-day record for February 7.
For the past 34 days in a row, the temperature in Salt Lake City has been above average. The last day below normal was January 4. The National Weather Service said they don’t believe that’s ever happened before.
They said Saturday’s temperature alone is mind-boggling. It went up to 68 degrees, and that’s a new record for February 7. The old record of 63 degrees was set back in 1886. If this keeps up, even more records are destined to fall.
“Right now we aren’t seeing any signs of cooling off, so the way it sounds right now we are probably going to set the record for the warmest three-month period for December, January, February here in Salt Lake,” said Mark Struthwolf of the National Weather Service.
People are certainly taking advantage. In Sugar House Park, people said they never could of imagined wearing shorts and a T-shirt in February. They had to unload the skies out of their trunk in exchange for their bicycles. The only ice to be found on this day was for recreation. Families went out and purchased it and used it for ice blocking.
“It was actually my kids idea today, we usually do this in the summer time and they said it’s so nice let’s go ice blocking how do you say no,” said Alyse Barton.
This weather has also been beneficial when it comes to clearing the air.
"I think we're done as far as any extended inversions of this year," Struthwolf said.
"It makes the weather a lot more enjoyable to be outside and to be able to see the mountains and enjoy this nice weather rather than being a little hesitant to go outside in the air," said Andrew Campbell, who doesn't like taking his kids to the park during the inversion.
However, these conditions could also lead to a serious drought this summer. The runoff along the Wasatch Front is only 60 percent of what is should be this time of year.
"Wait until March, April and May, because if we get a good snow pack in March and then we have cloudy rainy weather in April that could save the season for us," Struthwolf said.
