Forget about "False Spring," parts of the West will be feeling more like mid-summer as we head deeper into March.
A pattern change is causing the mercury to soar to record levels across the Southwest.
Record Warmth Returns To West
Above average temperatures are going to dominate the West for the foreseeable future, threatening numerous records. It's not just daily highs that will be broken, but all-time March records could fall as well. On Monday, Redwood City set an all-time March record after hitting 90 degrees, and nearly 90 other cities could do the same this week.
(MORE:March Outlook)
This record heat will cover much of southern and central California and stretch eastward into Texas. Some records could also be set as far north as Colorado. Los Angeles, Reno, Phoenix and Albuquerque are all cities that could see an all-time March record fall this week, among many others.
In fact, hundreds of daily records could fall this week all across the West, before the record warmth spreads into the Deep South by the weekend.
Here's where the current heat alerts are:
This is the first time a heat advisory has been issued in the Bay Area during the month of March.
As temperatures climb each day, places as far north as San Jose and Redding could see highs near 90 degrees.
For the Desert Southwest, this is looking to be a historic March heat wave.
(MORE:Heat Safety And Preparation)
Phoenix could see multiple days over 100 degrees. They typically don't reach temperatures this high until early May, and their earliest recorded 100-degree day was set in 1988 on March 26. This heat wave could beat this record by more than a week.
Some of these state all-time March records could be in jeopardy:
California's state record max for March is 107 degrees at Mecca on March 21, 2004
Arizona's state record max for March is 104 at Yuma on March 21, 2004
Nevada's state record max for March is 100 at Laughlin on March 17, 2007
And this heat isn't going anywhere anytime soon.
The pattern supporting this unseasonable warmth could stay in place across much of the West into this weekend, as temperatures run as much as 20-30 degrees above average for this time of year.
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Record Warmth So Far
Before the calendar even turned to March, Phoenix tied or set new daily record highsfour days in a rowall in the 90s.
One Deep South Texas reporting station recorded what may be thenation's hottest winter temperature.
(MORE:Record Warmest Winter In Parts Of The West)
And the records continued to fall as we kicked off thefirst month of meteorological spring.
During the first week of March, we saw many daily record highs tied or set across the Southern Plains and Southeast.
Then, the week of March 9, that warmth spread through much of the eastern half of the country, including the earliest 80 degree day in New York City.
Last week the Southwest already saw some daily records fall. Santa Ana, California, hit a staggering 97 degrees on Thursday, breaking the old daily record set in 2007. Records all were broken or tied across Southwestern California, including Chula Vista (91), Ramona (90), Alpine (92) and El Cajon (94). All their previous records were from 2007.
Daily high temperature records that fell on Friday include Phoenix, Arizona (93), Downtown Los Angeles (92) San Diego (89) and LAX (88).
Saturday's daily high records that were tied or broken include San Angelo, Texas (93), Roswell, New Mexico (89) and Albuquerque (81) among several others.
Sunday brought broken and tied records for Austin Camp Mabry, Texas (97), Austin Bergstrom, Texas, (98), San Antonio, Texas (95), Phoenix (92) and Dallas-Fort Worth (87) among others.
Monday's daily high records that were broken include San Fransisco (83), Redwood City (90), Oakland (87), Salinas (90), Burbank (92), among others.
Why So Strong?
The reason for why this heatwave in particular has to do with the ridge of high pressure that is draped across the West. This high pressure is record breaking for March, comparable in strength to ones we see in June. You can see the general position of the high pressure on the graphic below.
Record high pressure? Record temperatures. Temperatures we are seeing this week...in March... are comparable to what we should be seeing in summer.
This high pressure will slightly shift east, so we should start to see some above average temperature shift to the Southeast. The records that could be broken for the east are not expected to be as drastic as the West, but we will monitor the records for here as well.
Jonathan Erdman is a senior meteorologist at weather.com and has been covering national and international weather since 1996. Extreme and bizarre weather are his favorite topics. Reach out to him onBluesky,X (formerly Twitter)andFacebook.