Air conditioners, at the ready! A big warming trend will carry thermometers into the 70s and 80s across New Jersey this week, easily our warmest stretch of weather since last September.

At the moment, we're still under the thumb of a storm system spinning over New England. At the tail end of this system, we're seeing some very light shower activity in North Jersey Monday morning. Models suggest a few bands of raindrops will sink southward through northern and central NJ as the day progresses. While that track makes sense, it's important to note that our atmosphere is very dry right now. Therefore, while I have to include a shower chance in the forecast, anything that falls from the sky will be light (if it even makes it to the ground).

Meanwhile, that storm system will cause very different weather situations to envelop the northern and southern parts of the state. Skies on Monday will be mostly cloudy in North Jersey and mostly sunny in South Jersey (at least by this afternoon). Temperatures will range from the cool mid 50s in North Jersey to the almost-seasonable mid 60s in South Jersey. It will be breezy statewide, out of the north-northwest at 10 to 20 mph, with a rare gust to about 30 mph.

As skies clear out Monday night, temperatures will be allowed to fall into the lower to mid 40s. I'll call it comfortably cool.

May begins Tuesday, and so does our big summerlike warmup. Highs will soar to about 75 to 80 degrees for most of the state under partly sunny skies. As usual, the cool spot in the state will be the Jersey Shore, especially on barrier islands. The water temperature of the ocean and bays are still pretty cool, in the 50s, around this time of year. And as you know, that often has a significant impact on our air temperature.

As winds become southwesterly and skies go mostly sunny, Wednesday gets even warmer with highs between 80 and 85 degrees just about everywhere but the beaches. Humidity won't be horrendous, but it will certainly be elevated — enough excuse for me to fire up the air conditioner.

Even though clouds will increase significantly by Thursday, it's going to remain very warm with highs approaching the mid 80s. Additionally, I could see a spot shower or thunderstorm popping up late-day Thursday, especially in North Jersey.

Friday looks very similar to Thursday: mostly cloudy, breezy, very warm in the 80s, with a late-day shower/storm chance.

The early look at the weekend shows a progressive cooldown — near 80 on Saturday, and lower 70s by Sunday. Saturday actually looks like the better day of the weekend, and will hopefully remain dry. Our next chance of substantial, widespread rain will be Sunday into early next week.

Finally, to answer the question I posed in the headline of this post... Will we hit 90 degrees this week? New Jersey's highest temperature number on my forecast is 88 degrees on Thursday. So technically, no I do anticipate any 90s this week. But what's two degrees between friends — it's certainly possible.

Dan Zarrow is Chief Meteorologist for Townsquare Media New Jersey. Follow him on Facebook or Twitter for the latest forecast and realtime weather updates.

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