Christmas Weather Outlook | WeatherBug
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Christmas Weather Outlook

August 14, 2017
By WeatherBug Meteorologist, Daniel Eiblum
Santa Claus will bring down frigid air from the North Pole to some parts of the U.S. on Christmas, while pleasant southerly winds will carry record warmth to other spots in the country.
 
Record-breaking warmth will be making weather headlines for Friday, Christmas Day, for much of the U.S.  Spring-like weather, characterized by temperatures on the order of 20-30 degrees above normal for some spots in the eastern third of the U.S., will make a White Christmas this year all but impossible except for northern portions of Maine.   
 
The strong flow of mild air will help bring warmth and moisture from the subtropics northward from the southern Plains into southern New England.  How mild are we talking about? A few spots in the Southeast may reach the upper-70s and perhaps tickle 80 degrees.  In fact, new record high temperatures for the month of December may be set in a few locations!
 
High temperatures in the East Coast will range from the low-80s in southern Florida to the 70s in the Southeast and the Carolinas, the 60s in the Mid-Atlantic, the 40s and 50s in southern New England, with the chilly 30s bottled up in northern New England.
 
The other big weather story on Christmas will be the widespread rainfall from the Gulf Coast to the mid-Mississippi Valley and Ohio Valley, where scattered showers and thunderstorms, some producing heavy rain, will be possible.  There will even be a marginal chance that some of these storms may produce severe thunderstorms containing damaging winds.   High temperatures across the Mississippi River Valley will range from the 20s and 30s far north along the Canadian border, to the 40s and 50s in the central Mississippi Valley, and 60s and 70s farther south toward the Gulf.
 
Expect partly sunny skies in the Upper Great Lakes with highs in the 30s, and plenty of sunshine and temperatures in the 40s and 50s in the Ohio Valley, and in the 60s in the Tennessee Valley.
 
On the flip side, a different world of weather will be found from the chilly Pacific Northwest to the downright wintry Rockies, central Plains, and Upper Mississippi Valley, with high temperatures below zero degrees in the higher elevations of the northern Rockies.  Light snow will fall in the Rockies and Intermountain West, where a white Christmas is a certainty. In fact, there is a chance for a little snow in the morning in cities like Seattle and Portland, Ore., where a white Christmas is rare!  The Southwest will have snow showers in northern spots and plain rain showers in the south.
 
Temperature-wise in the West, highs will range from the 50s and low-60s along coastal California to the upper-30s and lower 40s along the Pacific Northwest coast, while temperatures in the afternoon will struggle to hit the 20s and 30s in parts of the northern Rockies and Intermountain West.  Texas will have a split-personality weather-wise, as highs warm to the 70s in the south, but temperatures will be dropping throughout Christmas Day into the 30s and 40s in the northern Panhandle.