How about a round of golf? Thursday will certainly be warm enough throughout most of the East. Even way up a Caribou, Maine, where there is usually 2 feet of snow on the ground by now, the temperature will be ridiculously high. The extremely mild weather can be entirely attributed to the strength of the Pacific jet stream. It simply will not let any arctic based systems enter the game. Feast your eyes on the projected temperatures for Thursday. Sixties in the nation's capital and forties as far north as Montreal, Canada. Though wet weather will invade the East Thursday night and Friday, it will remain quite mild.

When bitter cold air comes up against very mild air, a fierce battle usually ensues. In the end, the cold air overruns the entire battlefield leaving the mild air in total ruin. Here you see the set-up for next week. Subzero air will rule all northern territory, while it will remain very mild through the southern half of the United States. In between the two, the storm track will become very active. This could very well become a long, hard-fought battle with cold air occupying much more territory than mild air by the last ten days of the month.

Despite global warming and fickle air streams, exceptionally mild weather can hang on only for so long this time of year. The current warm weather pattern is peaking now and will give way to progressively colder weather through the central states the next few days. The trend toward normal temperatures will begin in the Northeast on Sunday. Furthermore, we may see a complete reversal in the behavior of the atmosphere over the next two to three weeks. There are now indications that the mild weather during the first part of the month could be replaced by some very cold weather from midmonth on.