New weather records were broken Thursday as the summer-like temperatures continued in early March. Watch video
Lots of weather records are falling like dominoes as the mercury keeps on rising across the Garden State, thanks to a wave of warm air that has swept in from the South.
High temperature readings of 80 to 83 degrees were recorded at dozens of weather stations Thursday afternoon, primarily from Somerset and Middlesex counties in central New Jersey all the way down to Gloucester and Atlantic counties in the south.
Temperatures this warm are far more typical in June than they are in early March, when the high normally hovers around 48 to 50 degrees.
For the second straight day, daily temperature records were broken at most of the monitoring stations operated by the National Weather Service and the New Jersey Weather & Climate Network at Rutgers University.
Among them were these:
* Atlantic City, which hit 81 degrees in the mid-afternoon, breaking its old March 10 record of 76 degrees, set in 2000, said Jim Bunker, observing program coordinator at the National Weather Service's regional office in Mount Holly.
* Newark, which had an unofficial high of 79 degrees, three degrees higher than its previous record high of 76 degrees, set in 2002.
* New Brunswick, which hit 81 degrees in the early afternoon, topping its old record of 75 degrees, set in 2002.
* Trenton, which reached 81 degrees in the mid-afternoon, breaking its old record of 76 degrees, set in 2006.
Len Melisurgo may be reached at LMelisurgo@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @LensReality. Find NJ.com on Facebook.