Cooler Tuesday. Continued mild next week

Sunshine and a mild airmass treated the Twin Cities to a record high temperature of 50 on Monday.

A cold front has returned the clouds and brought isolated sprinkles for Tuesday morning. Clouds and a northwesterly breeze will cool us a bit today, but temperatures will still be way above normal for January. Look for high temperatures Tuesday afternoon from the mid 30s to low 40s. The Twin Cities are getting a mild start with 37 degrees at 6 a.m., but will probably recover only into the low 40s. The average high for the day is 24.

Record highs likely Wednesday

Wednesday is likely to be a day for the record books. A mild Pacific airmass and sunshine on bare ground should push our temperatures into the April range. The forecast high of 56 for the Twin Cities would beat the record for the day of 46 by 10 degrees.

And as you will note on the chart below, temperatures might flirt with the all-time records for warmest January day overall. In the Twin Cities, the warmest January day of record was Jan. 25, 1944, when it reached a balmy 58 degrees.

Then cooler but continued quite mild

Temperatures will slump a bit after Wednesday, but look for unseasonably-mild highs mainly in the 30s north and 40s south through the weekend and probably much of next week.

The temperature outlook for Feb. 6-12 continues to call for the likelihood of warmer-than-normal temperatures heading toward the middle of February.