Bette Midler Thanks ‘Ignorant Selfish Climate Deniers’ for Warm Christmas Weather

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Three-time Grammy-winning singer and actress Bette Midler is enjoying the unseasonably warm pre-Christmas weather in New York City — by blaming “climate deniers” for the phenomenon.

“December 22, 2015, 63 degrees in NYC,” Midler tweeted Tuesday. “I would like to thank the ignorant selfish climate deniers for all their goodwill toward the planet.”

Temperatures along the East Coast are indeed expected to reach historic highs by Christmas. According to the Washington Post, high-temperature records are expected to fall across the entire East Coast. The temperature in New York City could reach into the low 70s by the afternoon of Christmas Day, which would shatter the record of 63 degrees set on the same day in 1996.

However, climate change has nothing to do with the unusually warm weather. According to the Weather Channel, the warm weather is part of a regular, though uncommon weather pattern that sees warm air from the Pacific held over the mainland U.S.

Here’s how the Weather Channel describes the pattern:

A southward dip in the jet stream accompanied the brief cooldown that moved through the East this weekend. Now, early this week, the jet stream will quickly build back north across the eastern half of the nation and allow the widespread mild air to return. This lifting of the jet stream back to the north will be in response to a southward dip in the jet stream sweeping into the West.

Meanwhile, the clockwise flow around high pressure in the western Atlantic will allow southerly surface winds to dominate the East this week, pumping warm air from the tropics northward. Southerly winds ahead of a couple of low-pressure systems moving across the country this week will also help pump in the mild, moist air from the south.

Of course, around the same time last year, Midler claimed record snowfall and cold weather in the South was proof of climate change as well.

“If you live in The South and still believe Climate Change doesn’t exist, wake up,” Midler tweeted in January of last year. “And buy a snow shovel.”

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