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Record heat to hit East Coast on Christmas Eve
Posted On Dec 28 2015
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“We’re flirting with incredibly high temperatures as it is”, said meteorologist James Carpenter, National Weather Service, Charleston. Temperatures will be much cooler on Christmas Eve, with a high of around 44. From 82 degrees in Savannah, Georgia, to 79 in Norfolk, Virginia, to 68 in Philadelphia, to 62 in Portland, Maine, cities up and down the East Coast tied or smashed record high temperatures for Christmas Day. Highs around 50. Lows in the high 30s.
People living or traveling in and near Sandusky can expect more jacket-free, mitten-less weather coming up for Christmas.
Washington will see highs in the 70s on Thursday, Friday and Sunday, challenging records each day. In that same period of time, 290 cold temperature records have been set, 143 record cold daily highs and 147 cold nighttime lows, according to data collected by the National Centers for Environmental Information in Asheville, North Carolina. It has since soared to 71.
Meanwhile, alternative news site Common Dreams explained that the correlation between El Niño, climate change and global warming often gets muddied, but that global warming is a factor in the record breaking December temperatures. We have now set the record for the latest into the season without a 1 inch snowfall.
The record warmth is not only confined to the I-95 corridor.
Why has it been so warm on the East Coast?
In Phoenix, it’s only 64 degrees – chilly for a state that boasts year-round sun and warm weather. A pre-dawn cold front moved across the area bringing mild temperatures in the low 60s, with mostly sunny skies.
That’s a far cry from the frightful weather the city endured two years ago. In 2013, a crippling ice storm, appropriately dubbed the “Nightmare before Christmas”, left nearly 70,000 Torontonians without power just days before Christmas.
As for Christmas Eve, Shippensburg’s previous record was 60 degrees in 1965 according to records from Shippensburg University. Washington, D.C.’s December will close with similar anomalies.
