On Sunday, Grand Forks experienced a record warm Dec. 18. Temperatures hit 51 degrees at 1:47 p.m. at the Grand Forks International Airport, breaking the previous record of 44 degrees in 1943.
The weather right up to Christmas Eve and beyond promises to be on the meek and mild side with little chance of enough snow to cover even a sleigh runner, according to the National Weather Service.
At the UND reporting site, mercury rose to the 50-degree mark Sunday afternoon, breaking the previous record of 46 degrees, also set in 1943, said Bradley Hopkins, intern with the National Weather Service office in Grand Forks. The records for the UND site go back to 1890; the airport's records go back to 1941.
The 30-year normal high temperature for the date at both Grand Forks reporting sites is 19 degrees; a year ago the high temperature was 15 at both sites.
At Fargo's Hector International Airport, the high temperature Sunday also set a record, at 3:31 p.m., of 55 degrees, breaking the previous record for the date of 50 set in 1923. Sunday's high in Fargo was 34 degrees above the normal high, measured from 1981-2010.
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There was no snow depth in Grand Forks, and only 1.5 inches has fallen since July 1, compared with the normal 12.9 inches by now.
Total precipitation for the year at the UND site is 20.54 inches, 0.8 inch below normal.
Roughly 90 percent of the years since 1890 in Grand Forks, there has been at least 1 inch of snow on the ground by Dec. 18, and on Dec. 25, making it an official white Christmas, said Bill Barrett, meteorologist with the weather service.
"We are not used to not having any snow cover this time of year," he said. "It's kind of uncharted territory."
The last "brown" Christmas in Grand Forks was 2006, when only a trace of snow was measured at UND.
The last Christmas that the ground was as bare of snow as it was Sunday in Grand Forks was Dec. 25, 1957.
Nothing is in the works to add snow to the mix this week by Christmas.
"We will have a cold front coming through tonight, that will make it a little cooler for (Monday), but it could be fairly mild on Tuesday, well up in the 30s, and with some luck we could hit 40," Barrett said.
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Not having snow on the ground means there's a better chance that any sunshine might warm things up faster than normal, Barrett said.
Especially this year when all the crops were harvested early and the field work completed, leaving most farm fields black instead of with standing corn and sunflowers and tawny stubble fields.
"So, like today, we got a few degrees warmer than we expected, so it's hard to take that into account," Barrett said Sunday.
The end of the week will see high temperatures back into the 20s, he said.
Nothing on the horizon looks like it will produce enough snow to put an inch or more on the ground in eastern North Dakota and northwest Minnesota, Barrett said.
"We have fairly weak systems moving through every other day or so, but nothing really with the potential to put down much snow."
Extended Grand Forks forecast
Here's the extended Grand Forks forecast from the National Weather Service as of 3:30 this afternoon:
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Tonight: Partly cloudy, with a low around 12. South-southwest wind between 7 and 14 mph, with gusts as high as 18 mph.
Tuesday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 38. Breezy, with a south-southwest wind between 15 and 20 mph, with gusts as high as 25 mph.
Tuesday bight: Mostly cloudy, with a low around 21. West southwest wind between 7 and 13 mph.
Wednesday: A 20 percent chance of snow showers. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 31. North-northwest wind between 7 and 14 mph, with gusts as high as 18 mph.
Wednesday night: Mostly cloudy, with a low around 9. North northwest wind between 11 and 17 mph, with gusts as high as 23 mph.
Thursday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 18.
Thursday night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 9.
Friday: Sunny, with a high near 27.
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Friday night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 15.
Saturday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 30.
Saturday night: A slight chance of snow. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 15.
Christmas Day: Partly sunny, with a high near 20.
Sunday night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 8.
Monday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 26.
