CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — A cold front moves through the area Wednesday afternoon, bringing a taste of South Texas winter back to the Coastal Bend - and right on time, too, because the first day of winter is Saturday.
If you've got any Christmas celebrations planned for this weekend, you'll want your ugliest Christmas sweater for the mornings to stay warm. Low temperatures will be in the 40s and 50s both mornings behind a weak backdoor cold front Saturday. It'll give us a small reinforcing push of cooler air for the weekend.
Heading into early next week, we'll begin warming up at a steady pace. Onshore winds return by Sunday, and temperatures will quickly return to above-normal values.
By Christmas Eve, afternoon highs are expected to be in the low 80s again, so you may want to leave a pair of shorts for Santa to slip on next to the milk and cookies. Swim trunks are also a valid option.
Some deterministic (single-run) forecast models are trying to throw a cold front our way heading into the holiday, but I'm not buying it. There's been little to no consistency in the timing, and much less - if any - agreement between models that we'll even see a front at all.
The Climate Prediction Center is still expecting warmer-than-normal temperatures across the majority of the US for Santa's visit.
Based on recent climatology (1999-2020), our average high is 68°F and our average low is 48°F for Christmas Eve/Day. We'll likely be in the 80s, with mornings in the 50s and 60s. The warmest Christmas ever was 89°F in 1964.
This warmer-than-normal trend continues into the new year as well.
