Sunny, clear weather ahead for Philadelphia area

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- After relatively chilly morning temperatures, the weather forecast for Tuesday features plenty of sunshine once again as the Philadelphia area warms up to highs around 80 degrees.

Humidity will stay very low, so temperatures will have a moderately large fluctuation. That trend will continue through the rest of the week.

The extended outlook from the NOAA's Climate Prediction Center is for drier than normal conditions across the Delaware Valley through Sept. 24. Currently, we are not in a drought, but abnormally dry conditions are spreading across the area.

As of this writing, Tropical Storm Francine continues to move north through the Gulf of Mexico, likely making landfall in Louisiana as a Category 2 hurricane on Wednesday with sustained winds of 100-plus mph.

In addition, the rainfall will be a big concern, with 7-10 inches possible for some areas along the Gulf Coast. We'll be watching this very carefully, but right now it doesn't appear to make it far enough north or east to impact the weather in the Philadelphia area.

With this taste of fall on the way, it's hard to believe we are still in the summer season.

The autumnal equinox (start of fall) is in less than two weeks on Sept. 22 at 8:44 a.m. EDT.  On that day, we have equal hours of daylight and darkness, but our hours of daylight will quickly become shorter after Sept. 22. The days will feel even shorter on Nov. 3 when daylight saving time ends and we flip the clocks back one hour brightening our mornings but darkening our evenings.

The one silver lining is that extra hour of sleep.

Here's your 7-day forecast

Tuesday: High of 81, low of 57, sunshine

Wednesday: High of 83, low of 57, warmer

Thursday: High of 83, low of 59, sunny & warm

Friday: High of 84, low of 60, mostly sunny

Saturday: High of 87, low of 61, staying warm

Sunday: High of 85, low of 62, partly cloudy

Monday: High of 81. low of 61, clouds, some sun

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