By Jesse Wood
Dec. 29, 2014. Saturday featured a record high temperature for Dec. 27 in Boone, and the temperatures in the High Country were among the hottest in the state this past weekend.
Ray’s Weather Center recorded a high of 68 degrees on Saturday from its weather station atop the climbing tower at Footsloggers. The previous high in Boone was 62, which was recorded in 1984, according to RaysWeather.com archives.
The average high in the previous 50 years for Dec. 27 was 40.54 degrees in Boone. While the temperature was unseasonably warm, no snow on Saturday was right in line with previous years. In the past 50 years, snow has only fallen on Dec. 27 five days, according to RaysWeather.com. Three of those days featured less than one inch of snow. The other two days of snow featured an accumulation of one to five inches.
The Blacksburg, Va., office of the National Weather Service recorded a high of 64 on Saturday from a weather station at the hospital in Boone. That was nearly the highest recorded temperature in the state on Saturday, according to the NWS.
“It’s certainly not normal, but it’s not as rare as you might think,” Phil Hysell, a NWS meteorologist at the Blacksburg office, said of the temperatures in the High Country being among the hottest in the state.
Hysell mentioned that high temperatures in Charlotte, New Bern and Wilmington, for example, were 64 to 65 degrees on Saturday.
Hysell noted that sometimes weather patterns occur, where clouds and precipitation keep most of the temperatures on the eastern part of the state cooler while the mountains may see an entire day in the sun.
As for the week ahead, RaysWeather.com forecasts that temperatures will be cooler in the days ahead for Boone. By Monday night, temperatures will stay in the 20’s and 30’s. The High Country should see a wintry mix on Tuesday. Wednesday and Thursday will see plenty of sunshine, yet the temperatures will have lows in the low 20’s.
For more weather forecasts, check out RaysWeather.com and don’t forget about the RaysWeather.com smartphone apps.