Here’s The Odds Of Having A White Christmas

Christmas is getting nearer and hopes of snow blanketing the panorama for the vacation are rising. But how doubtless is a white Christmas? For a lot of the Lower 48, these odds could also be decrease than you suppose.

In meteorology, a white Christmas happens when there may be no less than 1 inch of snow on the bottom on Christmas morning. It does not should be snowing on the vacation for that to occur.

How Typical Is a White Christmas?

The map beneath reveals the areas with a historic likelihood of a white Christmas in any given 12 months. The likelihood is based mostly on averages from 1991 to 2020.

There is not a lot territory exterior the Mountain West, the far northern tier and northern New England the place the percentages of a white Christmas are better than 50%.

The previous couple of years are good examples of how restricted snow cowl could be on Christmas morning.

Christmas 2021 had the third-lowest snow cowl within the Lower 48 within the final 10 years, with simply 26.6% of the contiguous U.Sexperiencing a white Christmas. Snow cowl was solely discovered within the West and throughout the far northern tier. This is no surprise given how December 2021 was the warmest December on document.

C​hristmas 2020 had the second least expansive Christmas snow cowl since 2012, with simply 26.5% of the Lower 48 coated in snow. That snow cowl did prolong farther south than usually is predicted into the southern Appalachians.

Almost half of the U.S. had snow on the bottom on Christmas morning in 2017. That 12 months, snow coated the northern tier as anticipated and reached parts of the Central Plains, Midwest and Northeast.

On common, about 37% of the Lower 48 has snow on the bottom on Christmas, based on 19 years of information compiled by the NOHRSC. Since 2003, these percentages have various broadly from 12 months to 12 months, from 21% in 2003 to a whopping 63% of the contiguous U.S. in 2009.

Regional Historical Odds

Below we break down numerous white Christmas statistics, together with the yearly likelihood, the variety of white Christmases in every metropolis’s historic document and the final white Christmas.

The annual likelihood relies on information from the National Weather Service from 1991-2020.

Northeast

The most snow on the bottom in Albany (1966) and Buffalo, New York (2001), on Christmas morning, was 19 inches. New York City has seen as much as 8 inches on the bottom on Christmas (in 1912), and seven inches is the highest Christmas snow depth in Washington D.C. (2009).

Last Christmas, Albany and Syracuse had an inch of snow on the bottom Christmas morning, making it an official white Christmas.

Burlington, Vermont, and Caribou, Maine, have had greater than 30 inches of snow on the bottom in Christmases previous. In 2021, each areas skilled a white Christmas with 8 inches of snow on the bottom in Caribou and 4 inches of snow measured in Burlington, the place it even snowed a hint on Christmas day.

The document snow depth in Boston on Christmas morning is 11 inches (1995). Concord, New Hampshire, has measured as much as 26 inches on the bottom (1970). Last Christmas, Boston did not have snow, however Concord had 6 inches. Providence reported 2 inches, with a hint of snow falling on Christmas.

Midwest

Most of the area did not see a white Christmas final 12 months as a result of the snow was confined to the northern Great Lakes. Marquette, Michigan, noticed 5 inches of snow on the bottom with a hint of snow falling on Christmas.

Plains

Duluth, Minnesota, and Pierre, South Dakota, have had greater than 2 toes of snow on the bottom on Christmas. There was no white Christmas in Pierre final 12 months, however Duluth skilled a white Christmas with an inch on the bottom. The document in Wichita, Kansas, is 4 inches (2007). The final white Christmas there was in 2013.

In 2020, Minneapolis measured 8 inches of snow on the bottom on Christmas morning. Des Moines, Iowa, and Omaha, Nebraska, additionally had a white Christmas in 2020.

West

The highest snow depth on Christmas morning in Tahoe City, California, is 52 inches (1970). Denver’s document is 2 toes (1982). No snow was on the bottom the previous 4 Christmases in Denver, however Tahoe City had 31 inches final Christmas.

Five years in the past, Seattle and Portland each skilled their sixth white Christmases on document. Seattle had 2 inches of snow that Christmas morning.

In Alaska, Anchorage and Fairbanks unsurprisingly each noticed a white Christmas final 12 months, with 13 inches and 21 inches on the bottom, respectively.

Yes, It Has Happened within the South

Christmas snow cowl is not only a northern factor. Some years, components of the southern U.S. have marveled on the sight of a white Christmas. But it has been greater than 10 years since a white Christmas was noticed in a lot of the South.

The best Christmas snow depth in each Memphis (10 inches) and Nashville, Tennessee (6 inches), occurred in 1963.

In 2020, a white Christmas was noticed in Knoxville, Tennessee, (2 inches) and Roanoke, Virginia (an inch). Nashville had a hint of snow on Christmas Day in 2020. Farther west, Tulsa, Oklahoma, obtained a hint of snow in 2017.

Three comparatively latest occasions introduced an uncommon Christmas Day snow cowl to components of the South:

-In 2009, Oklahoma City had a snowstorm of document (13.5 inches) and considered one of solely two white Christmases on document occurred in Dallas (2 inches).

-In 2004 in Texas, Corpus Christi had a document snowstorm (4.4 inches), and Brownsville (1.5 inches) had its first day of measurable snow since 1895. Brownsville is on the identical latitude as Miami, Florida.

-In 1989, a pre-Christmas snowfall was adopted by a robust arctic chilly outbreak that introduced each Charleston, South Carolina (4 inches), and Savannah, Georgia (2 inches), their solely white Christmases. Jacksonville, Florida, missed a white Christmas by a day when an inch of snow fell Christmas Eve morning. It had melted by Christmas Day.

The Weather Company’s main journalistic mission is to report on breaking climate news, the surroundings and the significance of science to our lives. This story doesn’t essentially signify the place of our mother or father firm, IBM.