It's been a record-breaking hot December in South Florida.

Hot enough that 80 degrees, Friday's high in Miami, felt like a cold snap. Hot enough to set set six daily highs, two each in Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach and Miami.

Hot enough that the 89 in Miami on Thursday set two marks going back more than a century -- breaking a daily high in 1896 and tying the hottest December day ever recorded in 1902. Palm Beach's 90 also tied a monthly mark set in 1941.

Meanwhile, much of the rest of the country is bundling up for blizzards and bone-chilling temperatures.

Blame -- or credit, if you're a snowbird -- the jet stream, which has hung across the Southeast, and a stubborn high pressure dome over South Florida that have combined to block cold fronts, said Robert Molleda, a forecaster in the National Weather Service.

It's expected to stay in the 80s through at least Tuesday. After that, it could cool a bit, so maybe Santa won't have to wear shorts after all.

``It would not take a big shift in the pattern to get those conditions occurring farther to our north to shift down south,'' said Molleda.