ARKANSAS, USA — I'm dreaming of a.... record warm Christmas!? That's not how the song goes, but we are going to need to change the lyrics for this year.
Our average highs for Christmas Day should be in the upper 40s for Northwest Arkansas and the lower 50s for the River Valley. We will not be anywhere near that with highs over 20 degrees above average!
So let's talk numbers and how historically warm this Christmas could be! Of course, we are still a few days away so these numbers could adjust slightly.
This is the current forecast! Highs in the 70s! These are some long-standing records that could be broken this weekend. The current record high in Fayetteville was set back in 1955 at 72 degrees. The current record high is even older in Fort Smith dating back to 1889 when highs hit 75 degrees!
Not only will we see near-record warm high temperatures on Christmas Day but also near record warm low temperatures. Overnight lows should be in the 20s to low 30s, but we will see the 50s for morning lows!
We have had some warm Christmas Day's recently across our area. You might remember 2016 and 2019 when highs in those two years hit the upper 60s to low 70s. It's looking almost certain that we will see this year's high land within the top five warmest and there is a good chance we could even see it be the warmest Christmas on record.
What about the flip side? You might be wondering what some of the coldest and snowiest Christmas Days on record are.
Christmas Day 1983 by far takes the crown for the coldest Christmas in the books. Highs barely hit the double digits in Fort Smith and in Fayetteville, it only warmed up to 7 degrees!
And guess what? 1983 also holds the record for the coldest morning lows too! The thermometer dropped down to -1 degrees in Fort Smith and -8 degrees in Fayetteville Christmas morning in 1983!
A white Christmas is defined by having at least 1" of snow on the ground on Christmas morning. Of course, our chances of having a white Christmas this year are now zero.
It has been several years now that we have seen a brown Christmas, but you only need to go back to 2012 for Fort Smith's last white Christmas. You might remember that year when 4 inches of snow fell on Christmas Day.
For Northwest Arkansas, you need to go back a few more years to 2009. A Christmas Eve storm dropped a few inches of snow across the area and some of that snow was still on the ground into Christmas Day.
- Tyler