By Howard Packowitz

Fans are sweating, literally, at the midway point of the high school football season.

Dan Smith, meteorologist for the National Weather Service at Lincoln, said an upper level high pressure system hovers above the midwest, bringing record high temperatures for early autumn in Central Illinois.

The heat wave does not necessarily mean we’re in for an unusually warm winter. Smith tells WJBC’s Sam Wood it looks like we’ll have close to normal winter temperatures, and it will be a little wetter than normal when the weather turns.

“Usually it takes until probably later in November into December before we can really see a pattern starting to set up, where we might have a chance of seeing what type of situation we’re going to have across our area for the winter months. But until then, right now the outlook is calling for temperatures close to normal and the precipitation trending a little bit above normal,” said Smith.

Smith said we won’t see much relief from this heat until it rains on Tuesday. Cooler temperatures are in the forecast for the middle of next week.

Howard Packowitz can be reached at [email protected]