Record-warm December in Myrtle Beach area continues, but 2016 bringing cool resolution

It’s been a warm December and the winter heat wave that has washed over the Grand Strand is expected to stick around through the end of the month, but 2016 will start with a cooler resolution.

“A cold front is coming through sometime on Friday and it’ll change this pattern that we’ve been in basically for the whole month,” said Dave Loewenthal, a weather forecaster with the National Weather Service in Wilmington, N.C.

The front will sweep more normal temperatures into the area with highs expected in the mid- to upper-50s and lows close to 40 – temperatures that seemed oddly vacant through much of December.

Two high temperatures shattered records and two others tied with warm days logged half-a-century ago in the Grand Strand over the past week. The new records logged at the Grand Strand Airport in North Myrtle Beach reflected a continuing warm trend that left many scratching their heads and pointing to El Niño.

The weather pattern stirred up by the warming Pacific waters has brought a warmer winter to the area, according to meteorologists.

On Monday “we broke a record 77 degrees at North Myrtle Beach,” Loewenthal said. The previous record of 70 degrees for Dec. 28 was set in 2008.

On Sunday “that record was tied at 75 degrees,” he said, with the previous record warmth of 75 set 66 years ago in 1949.

On Saturday, a new record high of 76 was logged at the airport, breaking a record high of 68 set back in 1950, he said. On Christmas Eve, the area tied again at 75 degrees, matching a record set in 1955.

And the warm trend doesn’t appear to end this year.

“We’re still warm today, warm tomorrow and even the 31^st (Thursday) is still pretty warm,” Loewenthal said Tuesday.

This story was originally published December 29, 2015 at 12:57 PM with the headline "Record-warm December in Myrtle Beach area continues, but 2016 bringing cool resolution."