Spring break will soon feel more like summer vacation in New York City, as forecasters predict that record-setting temperatures will bake the boroughs this week.
New Yorkers were already walking on sunshine and tanning in bathing suits Tuesday afternoon as the above-average temperature reached 74 degrees in Central Park — but that was just a preview of what was to come.
Temperatures will be some 25 degrees above average into Saturday, with Thursday and Friday highs of 85 that are more appropriate for the middle of June, according to Fox Weather meteorologist Samantha Thomas.
“This will be really feeling like spring and summer with clear skies and the warm temperatures, so it should be really nice,” Thomas said, adding that the weather was “crazy unseasonably warm.”
A three-day sunny stretch of unusually hot temperatures in the mid-80s was set to begin Wednesday, amounting to what could only be considered a junior heat wave, less than one month into spring.
Newark, New Jersey’s forecasted Thursday high of 87 was one degree higher than its all-time record of 86 degrees, which happened on April 13, 1977, Thomas said.
Friday’s record high of 84 degrees at LaGuardia Airport — set in 1941 — was expected to be eclipsed as temps were predicted to reach 85 in the boroughs and stay in the 60s at night.
“It should be really close. If they don’t break it they should… most likely tie it,” Thomas predicted.
Zoe Oliver, 19, was already in a summer state of mind as she tanned in Central Park’s East Meadow Tuesday.
The Fashion Institute of Technology student, clad in a t-shirt and shorts, told The Post she had just been laying out in her bathing suit after finishing her shift at Starbucks.
“I’m so excited I’m going to tan Thursday and Friday out here,” Oliver said. “It brings out my freckles more. Like you can’t see them when I’m all pale, and I like my freckles. And my hair gets lighter when I tan too. So that’s nicer too,” the sun worshipper said.
The Iowa native said it was also inspiring to see Manhattan park in bloom.
“I hadn’t seen the trees yet. All the cherry blossoms? I like seeing those. It’s so pretty… there’s so many tulips everywhere,” Oliver said.
Elsewhere in the park, New Yorkers were lapping up ice cream, even though it was soup weather just days before.
Graduate student Eve Kummer-Landau, 28, said she had planned to study indoors Tuesday but changed course when she saw how nice it was in the afternoon, grabbing a frosty treat on her way to the park.
“I’m a graduate student so I’m on my spring break right now, and I was planning to go to the performing arts library and then I decided to stay on the train instead of getting off,” Kummer-Landau explained.
“I decided that chocolate ice cream with peanuts on a spring day during Passover was the right choice,” Kummer-Landau continued.
Despite lapping up the sunshine, Kummer-Landau expressed concern about how unseasonable the conditions were.
“I think it probably should be cooler right now and I’m definitely aware that we didn’t have snow this winter,” Kummer-Landau said, alluding to climate change.
A grandmother named Jessica “in her 60s” pushed her baby granddaughter Genesis to the park from their Harlem home on 113th Street to take full “advantage” of the warmest part of Tuesday afternoon.
“They need some sunshine. They need to be out and about, socialize” she said of babies’ schedules.
“It’s perfect,” Jessica said of the sunny weather, an anecdote to the gloomy rain the city had seen of late.
“It starts out nice, right? Then it starts to rain or something” Jessica said of the recent weather, which has had her “cooped up” inside, a problem that wouldn’t happen again until the weekend.
On top of the summer-like temperatures, the entire East Coast was set to enjoy clear skies, low humidity and mild wind, said Thomas, the forecaster.
“We’ve got high pressure over the area– that’s what’s keeping it nice and warm and dry and the heat locked in.”
