Kansas City flirts with record warm temperatures on Black Friday

Kansas City flirted with a record high temperature on Friday, a day so nice everyone who had to work wished they didn’t.

The record for Nov. 24 in Kansas City was 73 degrees, set in 1990. The forecast for Friday also was 73 degrees, but it only reached 72, according to the National Weather Service in Pleasant Hill.

“There’s a pretty nice, big high-pressure front off the western coast of Mexico, which might be helping a little bit,” said meteorologist Sarah Grana. “And there’s a surface low-pressure system over the Colorado-Oklahoma border. That’s just allowing a lot more warmer temperatures to flow in our direction.”

Saturday’s high is forecast to be 59 degrees and Sunday’s 61, still well above the averages for those dates but nowhere near the records of 70 and 78 respectively. No precipitation is expected until possibly midweek.

High clouds and gusty winds dominated Friday afternoon. That and low relative humidity along with dry conditions contributed to an elevated fire danger. Outdoor burning was “highly discouraged” by the weather service.

This story was originally published November 24, 2017 at 3:29 PM with the headline "Kansas City flirts with record warm temperatures on Black Friday."