Seattle records its warmest December. What does that mean for mountain snowpack?

Seattle just just experienced its warmest December on record, and the trend is likely to continue through the rest of winter. That's bad news for Washington's mountains, which are currently quite low on snowpack.

"December temperatures across all of Washington state were between 3 and 6 degrees Fahrenheit above normal," Deputy State Climatologist Karin Bumbaco told Seattle Now. "So that's a pretty strong monthly anomaly."

The National Weather Service takes measurements for Seattle at Sea-Tac International Airport. December's daily average temperature for Seattle was 45.5 degrees Fahrenheit. That beats the old record (45.3 degrees) set in 2014.

Seattle was not alone. Olympia also hit 45.5 degrees in December, beating its previous high record (45 degrees) set in 1950.