The Midwest was so warm this winter that a Minnesota family was able to get an inground swimming pool installed.

Temperatures in the upper 50s and 60s allowed Shawn Racine, the co-owner of A Pool Day, in St. Paul, to dig the hole, hoist the fiberglass pool, install the plumbing, and fill it with water. They did it all on a single February day.

'This kind of stuff in Minnesota doesn’t happen — we’re not putting pools in January and February,' Racine said, who noted that the unusual weather has meant that the ground isn’t frozen.

His company doesn’t usually get started on pool installations until April, after the ground has thawed and the snow has melted.

But a large high-pressure ridge over Canada kept the jet stream and arctic air held near the North Pole, and the northern plains and upper Midwest enjoyed temperatures 20 to 40 degrees above average for stretches of days during February. It was the warmest February on record for numerous cities in the area.

Racine said that during the permitting process, city authorities were giddy with the novelty of it. “They were like, ‘I can’t believe this is happening,’” Racine said.