CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — With only a little over two weeks until Christmas, cool weather may be on our minds but the weather pattern is not behaving like a typical December. Much of the nation will experience very mild to warm air as we head into the next 10-14 days.
The mild pattern has already begun and looks it will continue through mid-December as the polar jet stream, a narrow band of strong winds aloft, stays farther north, keeping the coldest air bottled up in Canada.
This is due to a chain-reaction atmospheric process as high pressure aloft builds over the north Pacific, causing a dip in the jet stream between Alaska and Hawaii, which keeps high pressure aloft over much of the United States and a mild southwesterly air flow.
We also keep an eye on the polar vortex a tightly wound circulation of frigid air encircling the Arctic. When the polar vortex is strong, as is the case now, much of the frigid air remains bottled up, at bay to our north. At this time, there are no signs of the polar vortex weakening in the next couple weeks which would keep us in a mild pattern.
Although there will brief periods of cold air dropping into the nation, overall, most days will come in warmer than normal.
Get the latest forecast at kztv10.com/weather. Get a live look at our radar at kristv.com/radar.
