Millions of people from Texas to New York are experiencing their earliest spring in decades as temperatures remain well above historical averages — a pattern that AccuWeather predicted a day before Punxsutawney Phil called for six more weeks of winter.
This week alone, dozens of daily record highs were shattered from the south-central to southeastern and mid-Atlantic United States as unusually warm weather surged across all three regions. Blistering temperatures gripped places in the Southeast, including Jacksonville, Florida, which hit a record high of 88 degrees Fahrenheit on Thursday. That broke the old record of 85 F set in 1962.
