Christmas? Hell No. It's SpringTime in Greenland

As November gives way to December you might imagine it would be freezing in Greenland inside the Arctic Circle. You would be wrong. Here's a dandy graphic depiction of what's actually happening.

That scorcher that recently hit southern California has moved - a lot - all the way into the high Arctic
bringing balmy conditions to Greenland and most of the Canadian archipelago with temperatures reaching into the upper 30s Fahrenheit.

The heat wave began out west last week, with large parts of California sweltering in the 90s. As but one example, the National Weather Service Los Angeles tweeted on Nov. 22 that the 99°F reading at Camarillo Airport in Ventura County not only broke the record for that day (by 9°F), but broke the record for any day that month.

The heat wave moved east after Thanksgiving, and by Tuesday it was blanketing most of the country.

In late November, a major heat wave is a welcome event in large parts of the country, with temperatures in the 60s in large swaths of the south and with Minneapolis hitting the upper 40s.

But in a place like Greenland, a monster heat wave this time of year pushes temperatures above freezing. It hit the upper 30s in many coastal towns — with rain forecast in some — which means actual melting over parts of the great ice sheet that should be adding ice right now, not losing it.