Warm weather for solstice, but what about Christmas?
South Florida will be swaddled in spring-like heat this week despite winter’s dark debut Thursday when the sun reaches its southernmost destination of the year.
Daytime temperatures surrounding this winter solstice are forecast to climb into the low 80s and sink only to the high 60s overnight. That’s between 5 and 10 degrees above what’s normal for mid-December, and more like early April than the twilight of the year.
Meteorologists at the National
Weather Service in Miami said the patchy sunshine and warmth will continue at least through the weekend as an area of high pressure remains near Florida. Air caught in the clock-like swirl of high pressure sinks, warming and evaporating clouds as it makes its way toward Earth.
“Nothing’s changing,” said meteorologist Barry Baxter. “It will be over us through the week, late weekend, next week.”
Baxter said forecast models are still slightly at odds for Christmas Day, with one predicting a continuation of sunny skies and warmth, while another tries to pull a cool front into South Florida that would bring isolated showers and push temperatures back toward normal.
“The models are splitting, but hopefully we’ll get a better handle Wednesday or Thursday for what it will be like Christmas Day,” Baxter said. “Last week, we were in a bit of a different pattern.”
The low temperature Thursday was a chilly 42 degrees. That’s a whopping 18 degrees below normal, but a more wintertime feel than what is expected Thursday when the sun will shine directly on the Tropic of Capricorn, marking the first day of winter and shortest day of the year.
West Palm Beach will see 10 hours and 27 minutes of daylight Thursday — three hours and 22 minutes less than on the June 21 summer solstice when daylight lasted 13 hours and 49 minutes.
The exact moment of solstice Thursday happens at 11:28 a.m.
“For all of Earth’s creatures, nothing is so funda- mental as the length of daylight,” Deborah Byrd, editor in chief of “Earth and Sky,” wrote in her column on the solstice. “After the winter solstice, the days get longer and the nights shorter. It’s a seasonal shift that nearly everyone notices.”
This year, the solstice corresponds with the peak of the Ursid meteor shower, which should be most robust Thursday night, according to “Earth and Sky.”
The Ursid shower comes on the tail of the more robust Geminids, and both should be visible in areas with clear, dark skies. Ursid meteors radiate from near the star Kochab, in the bowl of the Little Dipper.
There will be no need to bundle up to watch the Ursid shower with this week’s warm temperatures.
“We won’t see any abnormally cold weather anytime soon into the Palm Beaches,” said Dan Kottlowski, a senior meteorologist with AccuWeather. “People want to go to Florida to vacation for Christmas so they can stay warm, and this holiday season will cooperate.”