Santa to Bring Record Warmth for Christmas

If you're a cold and/or snow lover and you live in the Northeast (well with the exception of northern Maine) this December has not been very kind to you as we have seen some rather impressive warmth this month.  Unfortunately for you snow/cold lovers there is no end in sight for this pattern to change.  In fact, as we move into the 3rd week of December all indications are we will not on;y see another surge of warmth but we will be looking at major record breaking warmth.

Below is a graphic showing the forecasting 500mb height means from two computer forecast models.  The image from the left is from the European model while the graphic on the right is from the GFS American forecast model.  This run is from today's (December 15th) 12z initialization and is for the 8-10 day period.  What we see on the two graphics below is a very deep trough (blue color shadings) digging into the western-tier of the United States.  The response to this deep trough in the west is for a massive ridge (orange/red color shadings) to develop across the eastern United States:

Both forecast models are indicating the 570 meter height lines to build northward just to the south of New England!  This in unheard of for what will be the later part of December.  What does this mean for temperatures?

Across southern New England we could be talking about temperatures not only well into the 50's for a few days towards the middle and later part of next week but we could be looking at temperatures well into the 60's!!  Further south across New York City and down into the mid-Atlantic temperatures will push into the 70's!!

After this surge of warmth a cold front is expected to move through sometime next weekend which will bring temps closer to more seasonal levels, however, there is no big cold or snow storms in sight and this may hold true for at least the first part of January.