The warming trend in New England will see temperatures rise by 20 degrees on Wednesday

You might be surprised, but afternoon high temperatures for the first week of this month were the coldest in 17 years. The fact that temperatures didn’t reach 40 degrees for so many days certainly created a feeling of winter, but there hasn’t been much snow yet.

Now the second week of December was slightly above average. But that doesn’t matter. Typically afternoon high temperatures this time of year are in the upper 30s to mid 40s with an absolute average of around 43 degrees. Here in New England, our averages are made up of extremes, so it’s actually not very common that we end up in the average.

As a strong southerly airflow pushes maritime tropical air northward on Wednesday, our temperatures are expected to reach the lower or even middle 60s for a few hours, along with some heavy rain. The jet stream will blow from the Gulf Coast states to Quebec on Wednesday morning with winds of 172 to 200 mph. Any planes flying from New Orleans to Montreal will probably be a little faster tomorrow.

Just last year, December 11th was in the 60s, and in the past we’ve been near 70. Assuming a reading of 60 degrees or higher for Wednesday, that would be a dozen times that December 11th reached 60 degrees , since records were first kept in 1872. There are many other days in the month of December that have reached this mark, so this is not highly unusual.

In 2021, there were six days in December where the number reached 60 – one less than the record seven days set in 1990 and 1982.

Behind this surge of warmth, temperatures will return to more typical December values ​​in the 30s and 40s for the remainder of the week. A new warming trend will then emerge late this weekend, which could maintain relatively mild air through the Christmas holidays.

Depending on how warm it gets in the second half of the month will determine whether the cold start will be canceled out by a warmer end and December 2024 will once again be a warmer than average month or perhaps a rare cooler than average month.

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