A warm Christmas is expected to contribute to 2024’s record-breaking heat

On December 27, 2024By Littum

Get ready — or rather, strip off your cold-weather gear — for the warmest holiday season ever.

Echoing the heat streak that has been a theme for 2024, December closes out a year of warmer than average temperatures. This month has actually been 7 degrees above normal.

“It’s almost a safe bet that we’re going to see the hottest year on record,” said Matt Salerno, chief meteorologist at the National Weather Service Phoenix office.

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were expected to have highs in the upper 70s with lows in the 50s.

A slight cooling was expected from Tuesday evening as a result of showers in the high country, but no rain in the valley.

“While you might need a jacket or sweatshirt in the morning, the temperatures will be pretty mild in the afternoon,” Salerno said.

Temperatures will remain mild the rest of the week, with lows in the 40s. Temperatures will drop slightly with lows in the upper 30s by the weekend.

The whole year has had temperatures 10 degrees to 12 degrees above normal. It has also been an unusually warm December.

This year is expected to break 2017’s warmest annual record of an average of 77.3 degrees. Last year’s average record was 77.0 degrees.

Other record annual averages were in 2020 at 77.2 degrees and 2014 at 77.1 degrees.

The entire desert Southwest is tied with the Phoenix metro area for one of the five hottest years on record, according to Salerno.

“Most of our top 10 records have been in the last twenty years. It’s kind of an alarming statistic,” Salerno said.