Publication Date December 15, 2015 | Weather Underground

More Than 1,000 Daily Records Broken as December Warmth Continues in the East

United States
A very mild weather pattern by December standards has engulfed a large swath of the Lower 48 states, setting hundreds of record highs and record-warm daily lows.
December U.S. Record Tally. Credit: The Weather Channel
December U.S. Record Tally. Credit: The Weather Channel

A very mild weather pattern by December standards has engulfed a large swath of the Lower 48 states, setting hundreds of record highs and record-warm daily lows. The warmth has been so incredible that several cities in the Midwest and Northeast have set daily record highs during the morning hours Saturday through Tuesday. According to preliminary data from NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), at least 1,426 record daily highs were tied or broken across the U.S. during the first 13 days of December, representing almost 4 percent of the roughly 36,000 daily high-temperature reports received from more than 3,000 locations. By comparison, just 90 daily record lows were set in the same time frame, most of which were on or before Dec. 5.