Record heat wave set to sweep central US on Christmas weekend

Vast swathes of the central United States are expected to experience above-average temperatures this Christmas weekend.

“We’re talking daytime highs that are running as much as 25 to even 30 degrees above average,” Weather.com meteorologist Domenica Davis said Thursday. 

“This means we’re going to see 80s down to the south on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.”

Cities including Dallas; Houston; Oklahoma City; Tulsa, Okla.; Little Rock, Ark.; and Memphis, Tenn., could see record highs broken on Saturday, according to AccuWeather’s forecast.

Temperatures could hit 84 degrees in Houston and 81 in Dallas, narrowly breaking records set in the last few years.

At the same time that record highs sweep the South, the West Coast is being pelted with heavy storms.

Over 5 feet of snow could pile up over the Sierra Nevada mountain range, according to the Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center, while Southern California is at risk of flash flooding.

The chance of record-breaking winter high temperatures and abnormally severe storms are both raised by global warming.

The accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere produced by humans contributes to the “greenhouse effect,” where heat bouncing back from the earth’s surface is re-emitted at higher rates.

The warming of oceans caused by the greenhouse effect is believed to increase the severity of storms as well.