Weather record warms hearts around the Triangle

By Richard Adkins, WRAL Photojournalist

Meteorologists may tell you the normal temperature for February 7 around here is 54 degrees. That makes what we saw Thursday anything but normal. The official high was 79 at the Raleigh-Durham International Airport, setting a new record for the day.

“Yeah, almost 80 is kinda crazy,” Matt Hraban said as he prepped his bike for a few hours of peddling the Lake Crabtree trails. He said the weather has been too cold and wet to get out this winter.

“This was my first day off in a while, with weather like this, I was definitely coming out today," he said.

The sound of sockets and metal parts could be heard from the sailboat storage area of the lake. Katie Richardson and Luke Holde used some of this mild weather to fix a few parts on their team sailboat. Both are members of the NC State Sailing team.

“We've had seasons where we had to wait until mid- to late February to get on the lake, and it's freezing,” Richardson said. “We were out here yesterday, we had wind, it was warm and just a great day.”

The team will be back on the lake Friday as well. “Our first regatta is this weekend,” Richardson said, “We get to go to Florida to sail, but we have to practice here.”

Cary's Godbold Park was full of families. After lunch with her daughter at school, Shari Downey brought the youngest 2/5 of her family out to play. “I love it, great to get the kids out of the house and burn off some energy,” she said.

“I don't remember a February day like this,” Ashley Garrett commented at her family's picnic table at the park. But just 6 months before her 1-and-a-half-year-old son Neil was born, on Feb 7, 2017, was just 3 degrees cooler.

Still, Garrett said she doesn't want to let weather like this go to waste.

“Need some sunshine,” she said, then Neil's grandmother, Cheryl, chimed in. “Enjoy it before the cold sets in," she said.

That cold could hit the freezing point Friday night.