Updated Monday 1:25 p.m.

Last month was all about meteorological fireworks. Pardon us if we don't start thinking about Independence Day fireworks right now as Seattle...OK, I'm going to use the word..."bakes" in winter "heat".

As a strong east wind blows, warming up the air as it sinks down the Cascades, temperatures already pushed into the 70s early Monday afternoon with plenty of room to continue to warm. It was 73 at 1 p.m. which was not only enough to break the record high for the day of 70 set in 1996, but it's tied for the hottest winter day on record in Seattle(!). How high will the record go? 75?

It'll lead to a clear and variably cool night with areas sheltered from the east wind dropping into the 30s but those spots in the warmer east wind may have trouble sinking into the 40s. Seattle's low is expected to be close to 50 but it'll likely drop down into the mid 30s in Tacoma.

Whatever your low is tonight, it'll be another sunny and very warm-by-winter-standards day Tuesday with highs into the mid 70s (upper 70s?). And it'll still officially be winter! The record high in Seattle is just 63 degrees Tuesday and will get smashed to bits and pieces -- quite possibly to atomic levels.

We'll see an easing of the east winds a bit on Wednesday to cool back closer to the upper 60s to low 70s. Yes, I just typed "cool" and "upper 60s and low 70s" in the same sentence. You can tell I'm still having issues processing all this....

A greater cool down comes Thursday with more in the way of marine breezes with highs dropping to near 60 as clouds increase.

Rain fans who are like up in arms over 75 degrees in winter can take solace that rain returns to the skies for Friday with shower lingering into Saturday as highs drop back into the mid 50s and some sort of normalcy is restored. Sunday looks pleasant with partly sunny skies with highs in the mid 50s.

What happens next? Some long range models are hinting at warming up again next week. Guess all that bread we raided from the snowstorms could go to good use for a picnic or barbecue! *

Scott Sistek
KOMONews.com Meteorologist
Follow me on Twitter @ScottSKOMO and on Facebook at Scott Sistek KOMO

* OK so only if that bread has a lot of preservatives.