Denver broke a record high temperature on Thursday afternoon by reaching 96 degrees — one year after a record low was set.

The temperature broke a 27-year-old record at 1:02 p.m. and climbed one more degree into the early evening hours, according to the National Weather Service in Boulder.

The previous record high was 94 degrees set in 1994.

On Sept. 9, 2000, Denver set a record low of 31 degrees.

Thursday’s record high is well above normal for this time of year as the average temperature on Sept. 9 is 83 degrees, said David Barjenbrush, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Boulder.

Barjenbrush said the heat wave is due to a high pressure system hovering over the Centennial State.

“The big ol’ ridge of high pressure is back,” he said Wednesday. “It usually resides over the western U.S. for most of the summer, but we had a lot of the monsoonal moisture, so now it’s kind of come back and taken over.”

Higher-than-normal temperatures are expected to continue into the weekend with possible record heat on Friday. Forecasts predict Denver will reach 97 degrees on Friday, which would be 4 degrees higher than the record set in 2018.

Conditions overnight will be much different as temperatures are expected to drop into the mid-50s.