Forecasters expect temperatures to soar up to 35 degrees Fahrenheit above normal across large swaths of the United States this week, with widespread record-breaking warmth expected on Christmas Day.
Joe Wegman, a meteorologist at the Weather Prediction Center, said that while warm spells were not uncommon in December, the scale of this one stands out.
“For Christmas Day specifically, weather stations are expecting over 30 record highs,” he said, adding that at 50 locations even the low temperature could be the warmest on record for the day. “And those will stretch from California all the way to the Mississippi River.”
Above-average temperatures were already expected across parts of the Southwest and Plains on Monday. The warmth extended from Arizona to Nebraska, where the National Weather Service office in North Platte, Neb., said both Monday and Christmas Eve were expected to have temperatures climbing into the high 60s and low 70s.
As the week progresses, the warm air is expected to spread eastward, with the warmest temperatures arriving on Christmas Day. Mr. Wegman said temperatures would be most abnormally high over the middle of the country, with Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma likely to see temperatures 30 to 35 degrees above normal.
Forecasters at the Kansas City, Mo., office of the Weather Service said Christmas Day temperatures were expected to reach 71 degrees — more than 30 degrees above average — surpassing the previous Christmas Day record of 67 degrees, set in 1922.
Farther south, the National Weather Service office in Norman, Okla., said highs on Thursday were likely to reach the low 80s, with overnight lows remaining in the 50s and 60s. Those temperatures would break records at all three of the office’s official climate-monitoring sites, in Oklahoma City, Lawton and Wichita Falls.
The East is also expected to experience a taste of warmth, though less extreme. In Virginia, the Wakefield office of the Weather Service said temperatures were forecast to reach the low to mid-60s on Christmas Day, with the warmest day of the week expected on Friday, when highs near 70 degrees are possible.
The unusual warmth is connected to a broader weather pattern affecting much of the country. Mr. Wegman said that while atmospheric rivers had been delivering soaking rains to California, a related high-pressure system to the south had been helping to drive warm, humid air northward from the tropics. As the high pressure system expands eastward, temperatures are expected to rise across much of the United States while cold air remains “locked in” over northern Canada.
The warmth is expected to subside after Christmas Day, though not completely.
“Almost the entire county will still be a good 10 to 15 degrees above normal into Saturday,” Mr. Wegman said. “With the exception of New England, where temperatures will be below normal.”
Nazaneen Ghaffar is a Times reporter on the Weather team.
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