After recording one of the hottest Decembers on record, chimney sweeps Thursday were searching for work, migrating geese stayed north and residents worried about climate change even as they guiltily basked in the warmth.
And temperatures were expected to heat up this weekend. The National Weather Service is predicting a high of 68 degrees Saturday, a full 25 degrees higher than normal, meteorologist Roger Smith said.
“That’s really remarkable,” Smith said.
Weather watchers said the warm winter was caused by a resurgent warming trend in the Pacific Ocean, known as El Nino, and a northern jet stream that’s stopping the cold air at the United States-Canadian border.
In London, the British climate office predicted Thursday that greenhouse gases and El Nino likely would make 2007 the hottest year ever recorded.
Stanwyn Shetler, of the department of botany at the Smithsonian Institution, said that a prolonged warm spell increased the risk that some flowers won’t bloom in the spring.
“You could lose a seasonal bloom,” Shetler said.
Some Washington-area cherry trees were starting to blossom, including those at the Washington National Zoo that were photographed and published in a national news outlet Thursday. The photos caused a panic, and citizens bombarded the National Park Service with concerns that D.C.’s world-famous Japanese cherry trees were blooming four months before the annual Cherry Blossom Festival, said park service spokesman Bill Line.
But there was no need to be alarmed, said Line. The current warm weather will not cause the famed Japanese cherry trees that surround the Tidal Basin to bloom so early, he said.
“The same thing happened last year, too,” Line said.
The Japanese cherry trees are descendants of those given to the U.S. by Japan in 1912 as a sign of friendship, and their spring flowers draw millions of visitors to the city each year.
In McPherson Square in downtown D.C., Colleen Fitzgerald said it was too gorgeous to stay in her office. Still, she worried about global warming.
“It’s kind of disturbing that it is so warm out,” Fitzgerald said, “but it’s so nice that I can’t complain.”
Heather Hamilton, who picnicked on the lawn with friends, said she believed the weather was evidence of global warming and television meteorologists were going out of there way to ignore that fact.
“This is not natural,” Hamilton said.
At the East Potomac Golf Course, lines of golfers waited at the clubhouse for their tee times. At this time last year, business was scarce, Mark House said.
“It’s crazy,” House said.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this story.
