White Christmas forecast: Will you be left dreaming of snow or reveling in it?
Christmas is approaching nearly as fast as Santa’s sleigh
By Mary Gilbert, CNN Meteorologist
(CNN) — Christmas is approaching nearly as fast as Santa’s sleigh, but almost anyone in the United States fantasizing about a movie-worthy white Christmas might need to keep dreaming.
Early forecasts indicate temperatures could max out around 10 to 15 degrees above normal for much of the country on Christmas Day. It’s a forecast reminiscent of last Christmas for many, which came amid the warmest winter on record in the US.
But the country could be split in two by warmth and cold in the run up to the big day. Unseasonably warm conditions will dominate the western half of the US — including Alaska and Hawaii — while the eastern half will be quite cold until Christmas, according to the Climate Prediction Center.
High temperatures in Washington, DC, for example, could fail to climb above freezing from next Sunday through Tuesday but could rebound into the more-typical 40s for December 25, which also marks this year’s start of Hanukkah.
Even though it could be cold in the East, it’s also expected to be much drier than normal from next weekend through the holiday, conditions that should be in place across much of the Lower 48, according to the center. That’s bad news for snow lovers.
It’s too soon to pinpoint exactly which areas will be dry or see storms, so some white Christmas dreams could stay alive until the forecast is fully in focus.
Some wet weather could impact parts of the East on Christmas Day. Early forecasts show a potentially sloppy mix of rain and snow could impact high elevation areas of the Northeast. Some snowflakes could flutter over a few spots in the Rockies on Christmas.
Any of these scenarios are far from guaranteed over a week in advance, and minor shifts in the weather pattern over the next week could change the forecast.
At least 1 inch of snow needs to be on the ground on December 25 in order for it to count as a white Christmas. It doesn’t necessarily have to fall the same day.
If a few flurries fly through the air but they melt on contact with the ground, sorry, that’s not a white Christmas. But if mounds of snow are still on the ground after multiple massive lake-effect events even though it’s not actively snowing on Christmas — winner! That’s a white Christmas.
The mountains of the West, parts of Michigan and New York, along with interior northern New England likely have enough snow on the ground now that at least an inch of it will stick around through Christmas Day.
Historical chances of a white Christmas
The number of locales in the US likely to have a White Christmas is limited, even if completely average temperatures were in store this year.
North-central states like the Dakotas, Minnesota and Wisconsin, along with mountainous portions of the West and Northeast are most likely to have a white Christmas any given year.
That’s because the north-central US is usually quite cold by late December. The chill helps prevent snow dumped by quick-moving storms — typical for the region in late-fall or early-winter — from melting.
Multiple rounds of snow tend to build a decent snowpack in the mountains of the West and Northeast by late December, but sometimes this blanket of snow is found only in the highest elevations where not many people live.
If you want a white Christmas in a city setting, your best bets historically are Minneapolis – about a 70% chance — or Burlington, Vermont — around a 60 to 65% chance.
The Chicago area has about a 35 to 40% chance of a white Christmas each year while New York City and Philadelphia’s chances are an abysmal 10 to 15%.
Chicago and Minneapolis last had a white Christmas in 2022, but New York City, Philadelphia and Washington, DC, haven’t experienced one since 2009.
Atlanta and much of the South have about a 1% chance or lower of seeing a white Christmas.
CNN Meteorologists Monica Garrett and Derek Van Dam contributed to this report.
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