The nice weather we've seen lately marks about a week of unseasonably warm temperatures.

People are opening windows instead of turning up the heat and cutting their heating bills at the same time.

But you need to enjoy the weather and low bills while they last.

Ellen Baker can't remember the last time she's been able to play outside with her children in shorts and a tee shirt in January.

"I maybe can recall a late February getting ready for spring, but never a January. This is wonderful," she said.

In fact a week of near record setting temperatures is bring out a lot of oddities for this time of year, from blooming flowers to Maricia Small eating frozen yogurt outside.

“With beautiful temperatures, comes even better news, cheaper heating bills,” Small explained.

Julie Hans of Progress Energy stated, "If the rest of the month continues to be as warm as it is right now then we would be seeing about a 20 percent drop in energy use."

Progress Energy officials said if a cold spell comes in and we get extremely cold temperatures, your saving could be cut in half or maybe become nonexistent.

News 14 Carolina’s chief meteorologist, Gary Stephenson, said, "We will probably continue to run above normal for the next week or so."

Which is very good news but Stephenson added, "Long rang computer models are calling for a pattern shift. Which is likely going to occur around the middle part of the month. And when that happens we're likely going to go to below normal temperatures."

Stephenson said the shift will probably be enough to see the saving disappear. “If you're lucky you'll break even."

But if we've learned anything weather can be unpredictable. And if history tell us anything, the upcoming cold weather could be bad.

Just before the ice storm 2002 which swept across the Triangle, we felt a similar jump in temperatures.