Pittsburgh Record: Warmest February Day Ever Recorded

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PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - It's official, a 127-year-old record has been smashed in Pittsburgh.

In fact, Pittsburgh has now set a record for the warmest February day ever recorded.

It hit 78 degrees just after 4 p.m. today, which is the hottest February day since records have been kept starting in 1871.

Think about it like this: Out of 3,587 February days since 1891, today will likely be in the 99.84 percentile when it comes to hottest. That's based on the temperature topping out at 75 degrees and we are on pace to blow by that.

For Pittsburgh, we are obviously looking at a record high, which will be somewhere around 75 degrees.  That number puts the day as tied for the fifth warmest ever for the month.

Last year, we hit 76 degrees in February. That's tied for the second warmest February day ever.

Feb. 8, 1900, still stands as the hottest day ever recorded in Pittsburgh. We also hit 76 degrees in 2000 and in 1883.

This morning's low fell down to 59 degrees. If our high hits 75 degrees as forecast, it would mean this would tie for the hottest February "day" on record with an average temperature of 67 degrees.

The top spot is held by a day that occurred in 1932 (Feb. 11) with the second spot held from a date that occurred last year (Feb. 24).

It's not just Pittsburgh seeing high temperatures.  As of 11 a.m., every major reporting station in western Pennsylvania is seeing record highs, along with reporting sites in West Virginia.

Morgantown, Wheeling and Dubois have all seen record warmth already today. The only question is just how high these new records will go.

KDKA Meteorologist Ron Smiley would like to think in Pittsburgh that today's record will last another 127 years, but with how these warm weather temperature records have been falling lately, he'll take the under.