A slightly toasty lead-up to Christmas Day is in store for North Texas after this weekend’s cold front.
The Climate Prediction Center, a part of the National Weather Service, is forecasting a high confidence that above-normal temperatures will persist from mid-December through at least the 25th. The most recent forecast is also predicting below-normal chances of precipitation, but the certainty level for those figures is lower.
Brennen Darrah, a meteorologist with the weather service’s Fort Worth office, said these warmer-than-usual temperatures are expected to be the result of a high-pressure ridge that is anticipated to form south of the Rocky Mountains. He explained that because confidence is high in the ridge forming — which limits rainstorms moving into the area and can trap warm air — the probability of above-normal temperatures is subsequently quite high.
For Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, there is an 80% to 90% probability that temperatures will be above normal. But Darrah pointed out that the figure only reflects the likelihood that temperatures will be above normal, not how far above normal the thermometer will climb. It’s likely that the size of the deviation from average temperatures will vary across the region.
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After Sunday’s cold front, warmer temperatures are expected to bounce back by Tuesday. Later next week, highs appear to peak in the upper 60s, which is 10 degrees above normal for North Texas in mid-December.
While warmer than normal, these temperatures aren’t likely to be record-breaking. Most daily records for this period at DFW International Airport are in the 80s.
Darrah couldn’t say how long the high-pressure system will stick around, but current forecasts expect it to linger through Christmas Day.
“Usually when you have a stagnant pattern like this, the models struggle with when exactly that is going to break down,” he said.