It's an extremely warm week across the vast majority of the United States. The northern tier is seeing some cooler air leak down from Canada at times, but much of the West, Plains, Midwest, South and Southeast are getting in on some extremely warm air that is making it feel more like spring than the shortest days of the year.

Temperatures are running some 15-25 degrees Fahrenheit above normal for much of the country. And, in some spots, those temperatures will be 25-35 degrees above normal. With snow cover continuing to melt away across the north, most areas of the country will not feel like Christmas, even if it isn't record warm.

It wasn't supposed to be this balmy. When snow cover reached a peak of 45% of the Lower 48 on Dec. 5, it looked like we were going to see much more of a white Christmas. Some warm air was expected to come in this week, but the forecast back then was nowhere near this warm.

Records have already been broken this week with the incredibly warm air in place. Areas in the Southwest will see their highest temperatures on Dec. 24. Areas near the Gulf Coast will likely see theirs on Friday or Saturday. Christmas Day is going to be the warmest day of this stretch of warm weather for a lot of the Intermountain West and Plains. More folks will be gathering outside this year than usual, perhaps playing a game of pick-up basketball or football rather than sledding down a snow-covered hill.

Below is a table for some select cities that will see near-record high temperatures for Christmas Day, Dec. 25, 2025. In addition, many of these same areas will see near-record-high low temperatures as well as multiple chances of breaking record highs this week. Complicating the forecast is for clouds to be across some areas of the Midwest and Mid-South, which could leave them several degrees below the record high. Instead, some of these areas could set record-high low temperatures across portions of Missouri and the Ohio and Tennessee Valleys.

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John Baranick can be reached at john.baranick@dtn.com

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