Record highs, flash floods expected across Middle Georgia this week

There's no need to worry about a yule log for the Christmas Eve fire this year.

Record highs could roll in Thursday and Friday, with a Christmas Day forecast of 78 -- a high temperature for the day not recorded in more than 30 years.

You'll also want to keep an umbrella handy, with rain in the forecast for much of the week.

Forecasts project warm days and mild nights. A flash flood watch is expected from early Tuesday afternoon until Christmas Eve morning, as several inches of rain are expected across the region, according to the National Weather Service.

The moisture streaming in from the Pacific Ocean, combined with a lack of a system sweeping down from Canada, is creating a recipe for "a pretty wet week, with hot and mild" temperatures, meteorologist Carly Kovacik said.

"We're expecting well above normal (temperatures) and wet conditions through Christmas Day. The latest data, through Christmas Eve morning in central Georgia, is 2 to 3 inches of rain," she said. "The rain will come in swaths, so we'll have some pretty decent areas of moderate to heavy rain, but there will also be lulls."

The projected highs for the week are about 20 degrees warmer than normal for a late December, meteorologist Ryan Willis said. And that's the case up and down the Eastern Seaboard, where more records are expected.

A Christmas Day high of 78 degrees in Macon would tie a record from 1982. Christmas Eve could break a record high, with the weather service predicting 78 degrees, slightly above the record 77 in 1964. This week's lows are expected to range from the low- to mid-60s.

The normal high for a Middle Georgia Christmas Day is 58, with an average low of 35 degrees.

Winter began late Monday night. This week's high temperatures, though, are more in line with the first week of spring this past March.

The rain will probably tail off Thursday morning. Chances for precipitation remain through Sunday, but the rain is less likely to come -- and would also be in smaller amounts, the weather service said.

"It's kind of a miserable weather through Christmas Eve morning," Willis said. "Not at all at what you'd expect in December."

And after a likely soggy week, the warm temperatures may continue through the end of the year before it begins to feel like a typical winter.

"I do think trends will change come January or so as that pattern is trying to bring that cooler air," Kovacik said.

GAS PRICES DROP, TRAVEL INCREASES

As gas prices hit their lowest in years for the holiday season, a record number of people are expected to travel.

AAA is projecting that more than 100 million people nationwide will journey at least 50 miles over the next two weeks. This would be the highest number of travelers in the last 10 years.

Last year, 99.1 million people traveled around the Christmas holidays, compared to 94.8 million the year before. This year 100.5 million are expected to hit the roads, board planes and trains and use other modes of transportation, according to AAA.

The increase in travelers can likely be attributed to an improved labor market and improved fuel prices, AAA spokesman Garrett Townsend said.

The national average for gas on Monday was excepted to hit $1.99 per gallon, which would be the lowest since March 2009.

"We find that when gas prices are low, it's certainly going to propel more people to travel -- particularly to road travel," he said.

Meanwhile, prices in Macon on Sunday were dramatically lower -- 34.3 cents cheaper per gallon -- than the same day a year ago, according to GasBuddy.com, which provides consumers access to local, current gas prices.

To contact writer Stanley Dunlap, call 744-4623 or find him on Twitter@stan_telergraph.

This story was originally published December 21, 2015 at 5:54 PM with the headline "Record highs, flash floods expected across Middle Georgia this week ."