Thursday, 4:30 PM
Boston on the brink of setting record for warmest December
By Andrew Ryan, Globe Correspondent
It has gone beyond having a green Christmas.
This will likely be the warmest December in Boston on record, if forecasters' predictions hold over the next few days. The average temperature through Wednesday in Boston was 42.2 degrees -- 1.5 degrees above the previous high average of 40.7 degrees set in 1990.
"We are teetering on the record," said Kim Buttrick, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Taunton.
In the last four days of the year, the average daily temperature would have to drop to 30.6 degrees for Boston to miss breaking the record, which dates back to at least 1872 when officials began keeping statistics.
That's unlikely, according to the latest forecasts, even with a high pressure system building over New England that is expected to bring cooler air.
Temperatures through Monday should be closer to normal for this time of year, with highs in the upper 30s, Buttrick said. Today's high has already hit 45 degrees at Logan International Airport at 1:54 p.m.
Through Wednesday,the average temperature this year in Boston was 53.5 degrees -- just shy of the record of 53.6 degrees, which was set in 1949 and repeated in 1953.
