20+ degrees above normal - Record-breaking heat continues

It's a warm October for much of the U.S. Temperatures are running between 5 and 20 degrees above normal each day from the West Coast to the Plains and Mississippi Valley and the hot stretch continues for the near future.

If you're in California or the Desert Southwest, you've been under days-long heat advisories and excessive heat warnings as temperatures make it into the 90s and triple digits. Further east in the Plains, from North Dakota to Texas, temperatures are making it as high as 20 degrees above average for early October, as seen on the trusty TemperatureRadar. We're far from relief too.

The NWS Climate Prediction Center has been calling for above-average heat during October for the western two-thirds of the U.S. and this forecast is coming true. The polar jet, the upper-atmospheric mechanism responsible for bringing colder weather southward during the autumn and winter months, has plans to stay along the U.S.-Canada border over the next several days.

Abundant high pressure will continue to dominate the upper atmosphere above the western two-thirds of the CONUS, bringing the above-average heat. The proof is in the dry skies and summer-like heat keeping you craving iced coffee, not hot!

Today, temperatures will get as high as the triple digits for California and the Desert Southwest. Through the Great Basin and eastward to the northern Plains and Upper Midwest, the TemperatureRadar shows the 70s and 80s, with 90s in southern Texas. The mid-to-upper 60s don't sound too warm, but the Dakotas are still dancing with highs as much as 8 degrees above average today.