Record-breaking warmth is in store for central New York leading up to Christmas. Unseasonably warm air is surging north toward the Northeast and could lead to two record high temperatures being broken in Syracuse.
Oddly enough, the first record high could come Wednesday night, not during the day. Temperatures are expected to rise during the evening, perhaps challenging today’s record high of 61 set in 1957 before the clock turns to midnight.
The second record, on Christmas Eve, looks to be an easier one to break. The record for December 24th is 58 set in 1965 and that record may fall shortly after midnight. The high Thursday should be well into the 60s before temperatures drop later in the day. For Christmas Eve services it will be dry and temperatures will be mainly in the 50s. Some 40s could show up by the end of midnight masses. All of this will occur under moonlit skies.
While not record breaking, mild weather will be with us Christmas Day with highs still in the low 50s.
Just last Christmas Day Syracuse was 59 F with no snow on the ground or in the air.
The normal high for Christmas is 34 F degrees.
Meanwhile, Syracuse is still on pace to have the warmest December on record. Through December 22nd, the average temperature was 41.7 F which is almost 4 degrees above the current warmest December (2006)