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Tampa Bay area in for hot, muggy Christmas week

 
Published Dec. 19, 2016

TAMPA — For the second day in a row, the Tampa Bay area matched record high temperatures Monday.

At 4 p.m., temperatures in Tampa registered 84 degrees — the highest for Dec. 19 since 1956, according to Rodney Wynn, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Ruskin. In St. Petersburg, the mercury hit 83 degrees, a first for the date since 1967, Wynn said.

Most of Florida basked in sunshine Monday, even as the Northeastern and Midwestern United States shivered in record cold.

Fort Myers, for example, set a new daily and monthly record for high temperatures in December, Wynn said. By 2:50 p.m. the temperature there reached 91 degrees, breaking a record set in 1978.

The unseasonably warm conditions are being caused by a dome of high pressure stalled over the state and are likely to continue until Christmas Day, when temperatures are expected to reach about 80 degrees, said 10Weather WTSP meteorologist Ashley Batey.

Drier air filtering over the state Wednesday and Thursday could cut humidity, but east and southeasterly winds heated by the sun will likely keep temperatures high, she said.

"Around Christmas, the temperatures won't be necessarily near record highs, but they will stay above normal for the next week or so," Batey said.

Contact Anastasia Dawson at adawson@tampabay.com or (813) 226-3377. Follow @adawsonwrites.