The National Weather Service is predicting temperatures of up to 70 degrees Fahrenheit in the Midwest, and much warmer temperatures than usual across the nation.
If precipitation does happen in some states, then rain will fall instead of snow.
“Approaching the final two weeks of December, many folks are wondering whether they will see a White Christmas. Looking at a snapshot of our latest temperature forecast for Christmas Day, we are predicting widespread temperatures in the 50s, 60s, and 70s across the eastern U.S.,” noted Michael Ventrice, a forecaster at WSI Corporation, in a blog post.
“This means it will likely be way too warm for snow here in the East. Cherry picking a city, our current Max Temperature Forecast for New York City (65F) on Christmas Day would break the all-time warmest Christmas set back in 1982 by 1 degree. The New York City warmth will not be alone… records could be broken across many cities in the eastern U.S. on Christmas Day. Now there’s still some room for the forecast to change of course but it’s looking quite balmy.”
Why It’s Warm
The higher than average temperatures across the U.S. are due to the Super El Nino event in the Pacific Ocean combined with the stronger than average low pressure about the North Pole.
The term El Nino refers to the large-scale ocean-atmosphere climate interaction linked to a periodic warming in sea surface temperatures across the central and east-central Equatorial Pacific, according to the center.
El Nino is one part of of the fluctuations in temperature between the ocean and atmosphere as they interact with each other, with its opposite phase known as La Nina, or the cold phase.
El Nino happens when the trade winds that typically blow towards the west across the tropical Pacific relax in the central and western Pacific.
