White Christmas (weather)

For other uses, see White Christmas (weather) (disambiguation).

White Christmas

A white Christmas refers to a Christmas Morning or Christmas Eve with snow on the ground. This phenomenon is far more common in some countries than in others. For example, in the United States, snow is seldom experienced at Christmas except in the Mid or northern parts and the mountains; but most parts of Canada except for the British Columbia coast and southern interior valleys, southern Alberta, southern Ontario and parts of the Maritimes stand an excellent chance of experiencing a white Christmas. The same goes for the countries in northern Europe, such as ones in Scandinavia, the Baltic States, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Poland.

Due to oceanic climate and such, the further west a country is in Europe, the lower the probability that it will have a white Christmas. For example, in southern France a white Christmas is very rare, while in Bucharest, Romania, which is at a similar latitude, it is much more likely. Northern Italy and the mountain regions of central-south Italy may also have a white Christmas. In cities such as Turin, Milan or Bologna a Christmas with falling snow or snow on the ground is not a rarity.

In the United Kingdom, white Christmases were more common from the 1550s to the 1850s, during the Little Ice Age. In modern times, for the purposes of betting, a Christmas is considered "white" if a single snow flake is observed falling onto the roof of the London Weather Centre in the 24 hours of 25 December, even without a perceivable quantity of snow.

In Ireland, the prospect of early winter snow is always remote due to the country's mild and wet climate. Bookmakers offer odds every year for a "white Christmas", which is officially snow being recorded at 09:00 local time on Christmas Day, and recorded at either Dublin Airport, Belfast International Airport or Cork Airport (bets are offered for each airport). Snow is most common in the north, and as such Belfast usually has better odds than Dublin, and considerably better odds than Cork, which is at the extreme south of the country. Ireland's last "official" white Christmas was in 2004.

Some of the least-likely white Christmases that have happened include the 2004 Christmas Eve Snowstorm, which brought the first white Christmas in 50 years to New Orleans and caused the first recorded white Christmas to Houston, Texas. The 2004 storm also brought the first measurable snow of any kind since 1895 to Brownsville, Texas, and its twin city of Matamoros, Mexico. The Florida winter storm of 1989 also occurred immediately before Christmas causing a white Christmas for cities like Pensacola and Jacksonville. The same storm buried Wilmington, North Carolina and the rest of Southeastern North Carolina under 15 inches of snow; even small amounts of snowfall are rare in the area.

In the United States the notion of a white Christmas is often associated in the American popular consciousness with a Christmas celebration that includes traditional observances in the company of friends and family. White Christmas is an Irving Berlin song reminiscing about an old-fashioned Christmas setting.

White Christmases in Canada

The Meteorological Service of Canada compiled a list of the probability of a White Christmas in selected Canadian cities:

City	Probability
Vancouver	11%
Calgary	59%
Edmonton	88%
Saskatoon	98%
Regina	91%
Winnipeg	98%
Sudbury	100%
Windsor	50%
Toronto	57%
Ottawa	83%
Montreal	80%
Quebec City	100%
Halifax	59%
St. John's	65%
Whitehorse	100%
Yellowknife	100%

2006 saw some of the warmest weather on record, with such places as Quebec City experiencing their first green Christmas in recorded history.

In 2008, Canada experienced the first nation-wide white Christmas in 37 years, as a series of pre-Christmas storms hit the nation, including the normally rainy BC Pacific coast.

White Christmases in the United States

File:US White Christmas Map.gif

Map of the Lower 48 States showing the probability of a White Christmas (courtesy of NWS St. Louis, Missouri)

According to the National Climatic Data Center, basing numbers upon 1988-2005 data and stations with at least 25 years of data, the probability of a White Christmas (one inch of snow on the ground) at selected cities is as follows:

City	Probability
Anchorage, Alaska	90%
Annette Island, Alaska (Alaska Panhandle)	17%
Fairbanks, Alaska	100%
Phoenix, Arizona	1%
Little Rock, Arkansas	3%
Los Angeles, California	1%
San Francisco, California	1%
Denver, Colorado	50%
Hartford, Connecticut	57%
Wilmington, Delaware	13%
Washington, DC	13%
Savannah, Georgia	3%
Honolulu, Hawaii	0%
Boise, Idaho	30%
Chicago, Illinois	40%
Indianapolis, Indiana	30%
Des Moines, Iowa	50%
Topeka, Kansas	23%
Louisville, Kentucky	13%
Portland, Maine	83%
Boston, Massachusetts	23%
Detroit, Michigan	50%
Marquette, Michigan (Upper Peninsula)	90%
Duluth, Minnesota	97%
Minneapolis, Minnesota	73%
St. Louis, Missouri	23%
Helena, Montana	67%
Omaha, Nebraska	44%
Reno, Nevada	20%
Concord, New Hampshire	87%
Newark, New Jersey	23%
Albuquerque, New Mexico	3%
Massena, New York	77%
New York, New York	10%
Charlotte, North Carolina	1%
Fargo, North Dakota	83%
Cleveland, Ohio	60%
Akron, Ohio	60%
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma	3%
Portland, Oregon	1%
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania	10%
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania	33%
Providence, Rhode Island	37%
Charleston, South Carolina	3%
Rapid City, South Dakota	47%
Nashville, Tennessee	13%
Amarillo, Texas	7%
Dallas, Texas	8%
Salt Lake City, Utah	53%
Richmond, Virginia	7%
Seattle, Washington	8%
Spokane, Washington	70%
Charleston, West Virginia	30%
Huntington, West Virginia	23%
Milwaukee, Wisconsin	60%
Casper, Wyoming	47%

According to research by CDIAC meteorologist Dale Kaiser, the United States during the second half of the 20th century experienced declining frequencies of White Christmases, especially in the northeastern region.

White Christmases in the United Kingdom

From 1950 to 2006, the percentage of years with a white Christmas in the UK was as follows:

Location	Percentage
London	6%
Birmingham	20%
Aberporth	9%
Glasgow	19%
Aberdeen	26%
Belfast	22%
Lerwick	38% (since 1957)
Bradford	14% (since 1971)
St Mawgan	10% (since 1957)

Southern Hemisphere

White Christmases are especially rare events in the Southern hemisphere, apart from Antarctica which is generally uninhabited. In 2005, a snowstorm hit the Snowy Mountains in New South Wales and Victoria, arriving on Christmas Morning and bringing nearly 1 foot of snow in higher areas. This was an especially rare event because it occurred during Australia's typically warm summer. A white Christmas in the southern hemisphere (specifically those close to Antarctica) is approximately equivalent to having snow in the northern hemisphere on June 25, and in some ways is even less likely because the Northern Hemisphere has population centers farther from the equator than does the Southern Hemisphere.

External links

• Are you dreaming of a white Christmas?