Record Warmth In Nation Is, Will Be Off The Charts This Month

Some forecasts call for weather next week more like May
 or even June in parts of the Midwest, instead of the 
normal December weather we should expect.

 In yesterday's post, I talked about how all the winter frigid air is bottled up way up in  northern Canada, Alaska, Siberia, places like that. 

More information is coming in about how really, really off the charts this whole U.S. hot spell has been, and will be. 

There's also a spring-like storm on the horizon, and we'll get into that further down in this post.

Before I get into how off the charts things will be, I've got one indication on how weirdly warm this month has been in the U.S. so far.

There are thousands upon thousands of weather stations across the United States. Pretty much very day, a few of those stations will post records for the date, or record lows. That's just the variability of weather 

Almost every month, there are more record highs than record lows, due to climate change. In recent years, there's usually been a few hundred record lows reported nationwide during the entire month of December and give or take 2,000 record highs each December.

In just the first four days of this December, there were 2,743 reports of daily record highs. (Eight record lows snuck in there.) By yesterday, the number of record highs increased to over 4,100, says the Weather Channel.

That's just an incredible number in such a short period of time.  We can probably expect a couple thousand more record highs this month if current forecasts verify. A vast section on the United States covering most of the central and eastern half of the country will be prone to record highs in the upcoming days. 

Monthly records will be challenged in some spots.

 Though forecasts could change, it appears the hottest temperatures will stay west of New England o   At this point it looks like temperatures will definitely be above normal here in Vermont, we might not get extreme, record December heat.  It's possible one or two days over the next couple weeks could bring us record high temperatures. Time will tell. 

Some computer models suggest temperatures could be a whopping 45 degrees above normal in part of the Midwest centered in and around Iowa.  I don't think it will be that extreme, but it could get into the 70s in that region if forecasts bear out. The hottest temperature on record for December in Des Moines is 69 degrees, so record highs for the entire month could be jeopardy across many areas of the Midwest.

With such warm air in place, storms coming across the nation will probably take on some springlike patterns. 

One storm Friday and Saturday will spread the risk of wildfires in North Texas, and some severe storms and possibly tornadoes overnight Friday and early Saturday in the middle Mississippi Valley.

That storm will send another squirt of very mild air, some gusty but not excessive winds, showers and possibly a rumble or two of thunder into Vermont Saturday. 

This storm marks the beginning of the warm spell here in Vermont. Temperatures will be above freezing daily starting tomorrow and continuing at least through next Thursday