Solstice + severe threat

In a truly unusual twist, we're talking about the winter solstice and the threat of severe thunderstorms at the same time. 

We celebrated (or not) the winter solstice last night at 10:48pm local time. We've already had the earliest sunset (Dec. 8th), and even though the sunrise times lag for a little bit (adding three more minutes until Jan. 10th), we'll start to add to each day's length from here. 

Tomorrow we're likely to have our 10th day of 50+ temps in Chicago this December, which is stunning (although the record is 16). Tomorrow could see see highs of 60+ in many locations, nearly 30 degrees above normal and threatening the record high for the day. 

Along with tomorrow's mild temps will come a flood of moisture -- dew points will be in the 50s, so it really will feel like March or April -- and a cold front behind the warm-up will threaten to spawn some strong or even severe thunderstorms. The primary threat is well to our south, and the mid-South could even see a tornado outbreak. Areas here or nearby could still see damaging winds in legitimately severe storms. In any case, high winds are likely along with the rain, so airport delays are possible.

Behind the storms skies will clear and temps will fall but remain ~10 degrees above normal. Both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day look partly to mostly sunny with highs in the low/mid 40s. 

There are no major cold-air outbreaks on the horizon for now. A few long-range models are trying to pick up some cold in the first week of January, but that's too far away to have much reliability. In general, there are no pending signs of a major pattern shift.